Supernova
by NervousWreck96
Summary: Live each day like it might be your last day on earth...it's an ideal that Sonic has lived his entire life by. After a recent adventure, that day may come for him sooner than he ever expected. With Dr. Eggman wielding his most devastating weapon yet, Sonic will realize that the slow, agonizing self-destruction of his body is the least of his problems. CANCELLED. TO BE REBOOTED.
1. Let's Plow the Road

**Not really much I can say here, other than…welcome to Supernova!**

 **What you're reading is the result of over a year's worth of throwing ideas at the wall, seeing what works and what doesn't, and trying to fit it into a meaningful Sonic story. I've been teasing this for about a month, so I hope this first chapter is worth it for you.**

* * *

 **PART 1 - SIEGE**

From the bridge of the ESS-1, Dr. Eggman had a view of the world.

It was staring him in the face, coming to him through a live camera feed from a satellite orbiting the earth, now flickering and waving on a color monitor built into his console. Fondling his chin in contemplation, he couldn't help but lose himself in the imposing presence of the planet, as blue as the most brilliant sapphire, as smooth as a pearl from the ocean floor, yet as rough as the fibers on his own moustache. And now it was so close he could almost reach out and touch it.

"Master…"

An Egg Flapper, one of the many robotic assistants aboard the ship, took on the dangerous task of approaching its master with a message while his attention was focused elsewhere. It received no response from the doctor, not even a grunt of acknowledgement.

"Look at it. It'll all be mine. All of it," said Dr. Eggman.

The vaguely jetpack-shaped robot pressed on. "Master…"

"All of this. All mine. All of it…"

One more time, this time with maximum loudness factor.

" _Master!_ "

This time, of all times, Eggman noticed. As did Flapper, who was knocked backward when his master threw his arms into the air in shock.

" _WHAT_ …do _YOU_ … _WANT_?" he said, as soon as he regained enough of his equilibrium to talk.

"The Master Emerald has been fully harnessed, sir," said Flapper.

Oh, yeah…that.

Without a second thought, Dr. Eggman engaged a series of levers and buttons on the command console in a specific order. In one grand crescendo, a symphony of lights and monitors switched on across the bridge, each one providing its own distinctive noise upon start-up. The doctor then pulled a public-address microphone out of the console unit and held the activation button firmly against his palm, ensuring his message would be transferred to every corner of the ship.

"Attention all units, all classes!" said Dr. Eggman. "Clear the deck and prepare for launch! T minus thirty seconds!"

A countdown began on every screen on the wall of monitors in the bridge. 30 seconds.

With the pull of a lever, a series of rocket boosters along the undercarriage of the ship blasted untold amounts of green Chaos Energy towards the ground – just enough to warm up the volatile motors, but not enough to actually achieve lift just yet.

20 seconds.

Dr. Eggman pulled a specially designed four-point harness over his head and fastened himself into his massive captain's chair. He would be the only one restrained, as he had placed enough faith in his ultra-resistant armor to protect his robots against the wild gyrations and inevitable collisions caused by take-off. There was no need to go through a long and complicated checklist before launch; the ship's sophisticated automation system took care of that for him. It was just as well, since the list of things that needed to be checked would have been almost as long as the body of the ship itself.

10 seconds.

This was the moment. With one button push, the restraining bolts clamping the ship down would be released, and the Chaos Energy motors would release one final blast of energy, enough for ESS-1 to punch a hole in the overcast night.

Emphasis on _would_.

Dr. Eggman's nerves contracted with each tick of the clock. Five seconds. Four. Three.

There was no two.

There was only a senses-shattering jolt below the floor of the bridge, as if the earth itself exploded under Dr. Eggman's feet. Before his mind could even process what happened, he had been shaken completely out of the captain's chair.

Staggering to his knees, he managed to take a brief glimpse back at the tattered remains of his "specially-designed" four-point harness and mentally added the Thompson Seatbelt Manufacturing Company to his ever-growing enemies list. He then scanned the rest of the bridge for any signs of structural damage...all the while wondering why all the lights had suddenly turned red.

The soothing, yet frantic monotone of the female voice synthesizer module would reveal all.

"INTRUDER ALERT. LAUNCH ABORTED. COMMENCING EXTERNAL LOCKDOWN."

Those words were enough to pull Dr. Eggman off of his feet and toward the captain's seat. His first act was to pull up a map of the ESS-1 onto the screen directly in front of him. The map was impressive in scope, almost too detailed to fit on one screen, showing a perfectly-scaled-down layout of the ship from deck to deck.

Impressive as the map was, Dr. Eggman was pretty sure that the blinking red dot on Deck 5 wasn't originally there when he drew it.

With each refresh of the screen – once every second or so – the red dot had advanced just a little bit further toward the very core of the ship. Even after the lockdown, the voice synthesizer's warnings grew faster, louder, and more frequent.

"INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT."

The doctor gulped at took place on his screen, hoping it would blow over. He wasn't so lucky. Soon, another red dot appeared on the map, following a similar path to the first one. Moments later, a third dot appeared, this one ascending from the supposed entry point on Deck 5 to Deck 6.

Eggman pulled up live security camera feeds from the decks onto each of the monitors on his command console. Each screen carried a different camera; each camera captured a different angle and position; each position was far away from the other, leaving the entire ship covered.

Within seconds, out of the corner of his eye, Eggman noticed a break in the still, unmoving picture on camera one. A tiny blip, no larger than a few measly pixels across, had emerged on the screen for a split-second, only to disappear just as quickly.

A tiny, _blue_ blip.

 _It…it can't be…_

"Computer! Rewind camera one!" said Eggman.

The footage from the first camera was rewound to a few seconds earlier, at such a speed that no blue blip was visible at all during the process.

"Zoom in and enhance!"

Moments later, the blue streak reappeared on a video screen to Eggman's right, appearing and disappearing before his brain could even give the signal to his eyes to move in that direction.

"Master?" asked Flapper. As usual, Dr. Eggman ignored him completely, choosing to focus on the security footage.

"I SAID ZOOM!" repeated the doctor, pounding the control panel.

It would all become a moot point. Camera five – which occupied the largest screen on Eggman's wall of monitors – would reveal the answer.

A figure…that's all that could be made of it…had poked its head in from the right side of the picture. The security cameras were specially built by Eggman himself to ensure quality capture of the most detail and color, neither of which he was seeing on the screen. The mysterious form was so close to the lens that the camera's auto-focus had difficulty coping with its subject. Eggman seethed as the picture seemed to come into focus, only to reverse itself time and time again.

"Grrrrrrr… **FOOOCUUUUUSSS**!" he said.

Eventually, through the hazy patchwork of pixels, a clear face finally began to emerge. A familiar face.

A mocking face.

"I…is he…?" said Eggman.

The figure on-screen was sticking his tongue out at the camera. Or more accurately, at the camera's owner.

Soon after, Dr. Eggman watched as a white glove, possibly belonging to the intruder himself, reached over the very same unit that was broadcasting the images. Suddenly, the angle tilted sharply toward the ground, as if the camera was being pulled off its hinges. It was the last image camera five would ever transmit.

The unit did, however, survive just long enough to finally give Dr. Eggman a clear image of his tormentor. Flapper could practically feel the heat radiating off its master's face as he made the match.

 _Of all times…that accursed hedgehog…_

"Arm all missiles," said Eggman, through clenched teeth.

* * *

It was a race against time. Not that Sonic the Hedgehog was fazed in the slightest bit. As far as he was concerned, he had this race in the bag.

A series of constantly-changing blurred lines formed his entire world. His movements followed an almost computer-like synchronicity as he flicked each leg in tune with the other, letting his arms drift behind him like the wings of a jet. His feet didn't contact the ground so much as they skipped, bounced, lightly brushed against it, almost as if they never touched the floor at all. The only sounds were the syncopated pounding of his own feet and the rush of wind that formed a futile act of resistance against his legendary speed.

And the occasional roar of a heat-seeking missile, like the one passing by on Sonic's right.

Of all the places on this entire barge he could've smashed through to get inside, it had to be the one where Dr. Eggman was storing ammunition. He couldn't decide if he had the worst luck in the world…or the best.

As the missile ran parallel with Sonic, he didn't shy away from the oncoming threat to his own life. He drifted _toward_ the danger, feeling the adrenaline rush scythe through his veins, embracing the chance that every second could bring him closer to his own destruction.

The flash of a green light on the very front of the projectile indicated that its target was well in sight and the attack was ready. Even with milliseconds to spare, Sonic never diverted from his chosen path. He turned his head toward the right, gazing straight into the weapon of his attempted murder, flashing a friendly wink toward it as he would a passerby on the sidewalk.

Perhaps that gesture alone was what triggered the red light, the signal to finish the attack. Sonic watched closely as one massive blast of rocket fuel directed the explosive weapon straight for him.

 _Oh, think you're so tough, eh?_ thought Sonic.

Even though it ventured so close to the hedgehog that he could clearly make out the serial number on the solid propellant rocket motor, he firmly stayed his course, holding back on altering his speed or direction to evade the missile's path. After all, it just wouldn't be fair to the missile, would it?

With absolutely no time to spare before becoming charred remains, the hedgehog revved up for a burst of extra speed. If all went right, there would be _two_ booms sounding at roughly the exact same moment.

 _Bet you can't keep up with_ _ **this**_ _!_

Finally, the heat-seeker struck the ground at its maximum velocity, deploying its explosive payload on the exact spot where Sonic…

…used to be.

Sonic was long gone, untouched. A sonic boom and a cauldron of flaming steel were all he left in his wake.

"Ha!" said the triumphant speedster. "Too easy!"

No sooner had he shaken off that first brush with death than he saw a bright, orange trail of light strike the ground directly in his path, ricocheting off the floor. Whatever it was, it created a harsh metallic ping that resonated off every surface. Sonic stepped off to the right, shifting lanes on the endless steel highway.

Soon, there was another. And another. And another that came from the other direction. Sonic's lightning-quick situational awareness let him put two-and-two together.

 _First missiles, now bullets? Come on!_

Even shifting positions did little to evade the oncoming barrage, as the two rounds of ammunition changed direction with him to converge on his new position. Undeterred, Sonic played along. With one graceful flick of his left leg, he glided across the steel corridor into the extreme left lane, floating mere inches over the hail of gunfire, and landed without sacrificing even a fraction of his previous heading and velocity.

One quick glance ahead told him the source of the gunfire. Small tanks were positioned at each side of the walkway, each tank outfitted with not just one, but three sub-machine gun barrels – all homing in on the hedgehog's position. Even in the midst of the chaos that unfolded around him, Sonic stopped to ponder.

 _You really went to_ all this _trouble for little ol' me?_

Without warning, Sonic shifted back to the middle of the walkway just as he crossed paths with the two tanks, and did something neither of them were prepared for.

He jumped.

At the point where Sonic was exactly perpendicular to both weapons, he had soared far above the point where they could _see_ him, let alone reach him. Too slow to react to the change in position, the hails of gunfire stayed tilted toward the ground that Sonic had previously occupied, while panning forward as if he was still running along at his current speed.

The gun barrels had been pointed at each other.

The ammunition from each barrel tore through the other side's tank like a hot knife through butter. One bullet to the heart of each unit was enough to create friction and ignite the combustible material within. The double explosion that resulted was inevitable.

Still soaring through the air, Sonic never got a chance to see the blast. He didn't need to. The cushion of warm air that propelled him upward and forward was more than enough confirmation.

In a fleeting moment of whimsy, Sonic stretched his entire body parallel to the floor and spread out his arms and legs, like a superhero in flight. He had only just reached the apex of his jump, and he almost wondered if he would ever come back down…or if he ever wanted to. He looked down on the scene as it passed by below him like a blurred brushstroke. This was the scene _he_ created, and its effects still echoed around him.

Explosions. Bullets ricocheting off the walls. And of course, the wind rustling his quills.

This was chaos. Chaos that he controlled. This is what he _lived_ for.

But Sonic knew he would have to land sometime. Seeing a rare open patch of road, he seized his opportunity, and curled his body downward at just the right angle. By the time he hit the ground, he had transformed from supersonic hedgehog into the world's deadliest bowling ball, rolling down the corridors in his very own Super Sonic Spin maneuver.

If he was going to have to land, then why _not_ do it in style? After all, sometimes he felt like he had all the time in the world...

Just then, Sonic's flight of fancy was shattered by a harsh, discordant crackle deep within his left ear. The noise gave way to the anxious voice of a young boy, someone who was not physically present at the scene.

" _Sonic! Sonic, can you hear me?_ "

Sonic had almost forgotten about the miniature radio receiver he had placed in there to help coordinate the mission…the same mission he was supposed to be focusing on right now.

 _Heh. Tails. Always could count on ya to keep my head in the game._

"Read ya loud 'n' clear, buddy," said Sonic, regaining his footing.

"What was all that racket down there?"Tails asked.

"Just some cleanin' up I had to take care of. No biggie."

Sonic wasn't sure, but he thought he could hear a sarcastic scoff on the other end of the line.

"Uhhh…say, do you mind tellin' me where you ran off to?" Sonic asked.

"I'm on the next deck up. I'm not exactly 100%, but I've got a good feeling the server room isn't too far away."

"Good work, buddy! What's the plan?"

"Well, we get inside, and we pull whatever data we can from the main computer."

"Good, good… **WHOA!** " In the middle of his conversation, Sonic realized he was still racing at subsonic speed…toward a concrete wall.

As it turned out, he had reached a fork where the road split off into two paths. Luckily, his reflexes were enough so that he made the proper left and right turns to keep moving without losing a step.

"What was _that_?" Tails asked.

"Sorry. Got kinda distracted there," said Sonic, adding a sheepish laugh at the end. "Anyway, what was the rest of the plan?"

"Uh...that's about it. After that we just…kinda wing it."

Sonic beamed. "Now _this_ is my kind of plan!"

Nothing further was heard from Tails, other than a faint sigh that was barely picked up by his in-ear two-way radio unit. Finally, Sonic was free of distractions, free to focus on what lay ahead.

This jungle of chain-link walkways and intricate metal pipes was entirely foreign to him. It blended in with every other monochrome, dull, silver and grey interior that he had torn through in his battles, yet this one, like all the others, was unique in the way that the dullness was all arranged. There was no sun, no sky, no stars, no visual reference for north, south, east, or west. For all he knew, he may have taken a wrong turn somewhere, causing him to veer back toward the hole he had entered through to get inside the ship in the first place.

It didn't matter. His heart told him this was the way to go. And so it followed.

The visual and auditory functions of Sonic's brain sent him more signals in one second than anyone else could dare experience in an entire day. Naturally, the hedgehog had to be selective of which ones to follow at which time. The ever-changing, blurred lines in his field of vision always had some semblance of order and connection to them in some places more than others. On his left, right, and above him, were the most frequent changes in those lines – mere distractions that he had long since learned to ignore. All that mattered to Sonic was the road in front of him. The road was his visual guide, the one constant of supersonic travel that he could always rely on.

Except when he couldn't.

 _Whoa! What happened to the road?!_

Sonic had come across something he hadn't found on his journey so far, something he wasn't willing to accept existed to him: a dead end.

He had no way of knowing it, but he had reached what was supposed to be a maintenance bridge connecting both ends of Deck 5, accessible only to Eggman's robotic assistants. Unfortunately, since Eggman himself had never gotten around to starting its construction, it was accessible to no one. Progress had only made it as far as painting black and orange stripes where the bridge was supposed to start.

On the other side, where the bridge would've ended, lay a conspicuous security door that led to nowhere.

 _Wow! Great design job there, Eggman!_

A cursory glance indicated that deck 5 wasn't the only one afflicted. As far upward as the eye could see, there existed security doors with no possible means of entry, with no floor or bridge for anyone walking through, all floating in a straight line that traveled all the way down the ship, all surrounded by a glossy concrete wall. It seemed as if their only purpose was to serve as memorials to construction projects that never started.

Sonic's options were few. No roads in front of him, no roads above him, no roads below him to break his fall. The hedgehog was careering into what was essentially a giant hole in the middle of a starship, and it was far too late for him to put on the brakes. There was only one option left: jump the gap.

At the speeds he was traveling, the door on the far side of Deck 5 could be reached with little more than a mere hurdle. So Sonic did the most logical thing possible.

He aimed for Deck 6.

He just couldn't help himself.

By the time Sonic had come to his decision, there were only two steps left before he reached the painted stripes that separated life from death. Not that it mattered. One was all he ever needed.

With one mighty flick of his right leg, Sonic propelled himself skyward. There was no time to consider whether he had gotten the launch angle right, no time to ponder whether what he had just done was the stupidest decision he could have possibly made. He needed to attack, and he needed to attack now.

Nearing the midpoint of the jump, Sonic curled himself into a somersault, each revolution of his body exponentially growing in velocity and force. Within seconds, he had lost all semblance of his hedgehog form, transforming into a whirling, gyrating cannonball of death and destruction. From here on in, the hedgehog closed his eyes, taking everything in as seconds seemed to turn into minutes. From his unique perspective on the world, he would have no idea if he had reached his target or not until the impact.

All was calm. The wind buffeted him from all angles, whistling innocently against his ears, perhaps to distract him from what was to come. All was calm. All was calm—

 **CRASH!**

The hedgehog felt every bone and muscle in his body shudder as the inevitable impact finally occurred. The natural daredevil had plenty of experience crashing into solid fixtures before, but this was different. His momentum was curtailed, but it wasn't broken. Whatever he had crashed into, it had buckled. It had _moved_.

 _Yes! A direct hit!_

Though the initial impact was made with his forehead, the sheer speed and power of his super-spin ensured that his entire body would make contact repeatedly. Whatever he crashed into, it felt like he had crossed paths with a truck. As his momentum continued to carry him, the motion of his super-spin began to carry the crumpled mass of steel around with him, shaping and forming the object around him into a cold, metallic cocoon.

Finally, Sonic's momentum came to a halt. For the first time since he boarded the ESS-1, he had come to a full and complete stop.

It took a few seconds for the hedgehog to gather his bearings. After the directional sensors in his mind realigned themselves, he slowly willed himself back to his feet to dust himself off and wrench his crooked nose back into its proper position. Craning his neck around to take in his new surroundings, the first thing he noticed was the gaping door-shaped hole that a security door had filled not thirty seconds earlier.

That was all the sightseeing that he could handle. Time was running short. His legs were getting jumpy, having gone unused for an entire minute. And there was that… _plan_ he had to keep tabs on _…_

"Yo, Tails! Can you read me?" Sonic asked, hoping his friend's inner-ear two-way radio would pick up his voice.

Almost instantly, Tails' voice came through. " _Read_ you? I bet I could _hear_ that all the way from the top floor!"

With no visual reference, Sonic wasn't sure if Tails was speaking out of fear, reverence, respect, or a mixture of the three. Nevertheless, he nonchalantly chuckled.

"Oh, don't mind me. Just your average breaking and entering. Nothing too serious." For Tails' sake, he omitted the part of the story where he nearly pancaked a concrete wall in the process. "Hey, you're still on 6, right?"

"Yep! I've just been piecing together anything I can on now this ship works, and it's really cool!"

"Tails…"

The fox could practically hear Sonic's eyes rolling, even on the other end of the line. "Oh…right. 'Don't encourage him'," said Tails, his face turning bright red. The two said no more about it, and shifted the conversation back to business.

"Listen, don't wait up! Just keep up the good work, and I'll catch up with you!" said Sonic.

"Okay! Over and out!"

Two harsh square notes resounded in Sonic's ear, signaling the end of the conversation. With a new destination and a new purpose, and a straight and narrow corridor to guide him, the hedgehog threw back his arms and blasted off.

Sonic was racing against time. So far, he figured he was in the lead by a country mile.

* * *

Dr. Eggman had almost forgotten the halcyon days of ten minutes earlier when was ready to launch a starship into orbit. His current focus was on making sure it stayed intact for at least _another_ ten minutes. However, before he knew it, a deadly cycle had started to develop. Just as soon as he dealt with an alert or a warning or some kind, two more appeared on Eggman's dashboard.

EGG UNIT DESTROYED. EGG UNIT DESTROYED. UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY ATTEMPT SECTOR 5B. EGG UNIT DESTROYED.

Another seismic jolt to the ship brought Eggman to his knees. This one was accompanied by its own warning: DECK BREACH.

Each new alert triggered an alarm on the bridge, bathing every angle of the room in red light and a deafening sound ten times louder than the next one. Panic-stricken assistant robots ran – or flew – helter-skelter across the bridge. There was no plan programmed into their internal memory for this exact scenario. After the third intrusion, the warnings of the voice synthesizer began to overlap each other, combining with the alarms to create a cacophony of utter paranoia.

"INTRUDERALINTRUDERTALERTINTRUINTRUDERALERT-"

Finally, with the very real threat of losing his hearing on top of everything else, the captain took some action.

" _ **SHUUUUT UUUUUUP**_!"

All alarms and vocal warnings on the ESS-1 obeyed their master and ceased. Out of sight, out of mind.

With his mind cleared…or at least as cleared as it _could_ be…Dr. Eggman marched away from his command console. Every last one of his robotic assistants had been conditioned from years and gigabytes worth of stored memories to expect some kind of explosion of their master's temper. Chairs thrown across the room, keys and buttons on the command console smashed into powder, self-destruct buttons "accidentally nudged"…all were known to happen on his _better_ days.

And yet, today, nothing of the sort happened.

Instead, despite everything, ever so subtly on Dr. Eggman's face was a roguish smile. Flapper's built-in facial expression recognition system told it something was amiss.

"Come along," the doctor said. "We're not licked yet."

Floating along with trepidation, Flapper asked, "But…master…the hedgehog?"

Eggman whirled his head in his assistant's direction, shooting a glare icy enough to bring any CPU to a shuddering halt. For many of Flapper's distant ancestors, that same glare was the last image they saw before they were forcibly scrapped to make the spare parts to build their descendants.

"Come now, Flapper! Have you already forgotten about my…secret weapon?"

* * *

 **If this story seems kinda slow at first, don't worry, because things are gonna get somewhere real soon. It'll just take a bit of time to develop.**

 **If you read this chapter to the end and have any thoughts, don't hesitate to leave a review! Even if you can't think of anything to write, just write whatever comes into your head and leave that as your review. Trust me, I'll take any praise/criticism I can get!**


	2. Two Goals, Zero Assists

**Writer's note: Okay, I am deeply sorry about that Chapter 2 that I posted earlier and then deleted. It wasn't until about an hour after I posted it (and after followers received Story Alerts through e-mail, naturally) that I lost confidence in it. Basically, in case you missed it, it was just a lazier retread of Alone Together (another thing I wrote) except that most of the "action" took place over a phone call – which is just lousy storytelling if done through the medium of text. I decided to trash the Sonic/Tails segments completely and start over with something that wouldn't completely blow up the outline I had written. Hopefully the action in this version is a little more…y'know…** _ **real**_ **.**

 **For anyone confused about the "Part 1: Siege" thing, it's sort of a way to divide the various chapters into their own story arcs, like in some novels that have a "Book 1" and "Book 2". Siege is the first story arc within Supernova, and the plan is for four parts that last roughly 6-10 chapters each. (Each part will be posted in this one story, and not separately. I'm not Warner Bros. and this ain't Harry Potter.) Of course, plans can change, but what is set in stone is that this first part will be the shortest. I hope I'm not spoiling too much here by saying this.**

* * *

" _Knuckles? Can you hear me, Knuckles?_ "

Deep in the back of his mind, Knuckles the Echidna had to be wondering to himself how he even got caught up in this mess in the first place.

Were it not for a sense of personal responsibility, chances were high that he wouldn't be doing this in the first place. Now, not only was the Master Emerald missing, but he had managed to get himself lost, surrounded by vast monochromatic catacombs of glossy concrete and stainless steel that all looked virtually identical to the naked eye. The echidna relied on his own sixth sense to lure him closer to his destined jewel. Sure enough, throughout his journey, his mind had been receiving signals from beyond.

Unfortunately, they were not the kind of signals he asked for.

A shrill, childish voice entered his left ear, and only his left ear. "Knuckles? It's Tails! Requesting your position! Knuckles, are you there?!"

 _Perfect. Just perfect. This is exactly what I needed._

Knuckles had forgotten about those silly two-way radios that everybody had been told to shove in their ears. He wanted to raise an objection to them before they launched their last-ditch mission to infiltrate the ESS-1, but ultimately held his tongue. After all, he had far more pressing concerns to address.

One message in, and he remembered exactly why he had the objection to begin with. He figured it would be quicker if he just got this reply out of the way sooner rather than later.

"Eighth deck! No, I haven't found it yet! Over!"

He made sure to shout as loud as possible, as he wasn't sure if the radio would pick up speech at his normal volume. Nor did he care, since he had resolved for this to be the first, last, and only time he would ever use the thing.

Reaching in with the most delicate touch he could handle, he – somehow, with what was essentially an oversized boxing glove – extracted the unit. It was a simple contraption, little more than a foam earpiece with a plastic cap at the end which concealed the electronic components. It was all too easy for someone to crush into dust…which is exactly what Knuckles had in mind when he held the unit above his head, one second away from throwing it to the ground with every bit of his strength.

At the last possible moment, a thought crossed his mind.

 _No…I might need this later._

Instead, Knuckles opted for the far more sensible solution of toggling the nearly undetectable on/off switch.

With that distraction out of the way, he pressed on, scouring Deck 8 of the ESS-1, twisting his neck at every turn to more effectively scan all possible angles of the route that lay ahead of him. Something deep inside his head told him he was getting closer to his goal. In fact, that "something" turned so painfully loud in its attempts to call out to him that he had to clutch his sinuses in a futile attempt to calm them down. The further he walked, the less control he had of his own basic senses. All sensation of hearing disappeared, replaced by a constant, high-pitched ring that stabbed at his eardrums, as if someone rang dozens of doorbells directly in front of him. No matter which way he turned, the ringing felt exactly the same, throwing off all sense of direction. To Knuckles, this could only be a good thing.

 _Yes! It's close! I can sense it!_

But then, just as quickly as it began…

"No…no… _damn_ it! Stay with me!"

…the sensation vanished. He could hear clearly again. Yet he couldn't see or hear any trace of the jewel he was bonded to by destiny. Once again, he had been led down the wrong path.

By this point, he had lost count of how often he had gotten a trace on the Master Emerald only to lose it within seconds. He did know one thing, however; it was one too many. He looked off into the distance and found nothing but white walls, white floors, grey ceilings, as far as the eye could see. Did this hallway even lead anywhere? Had he somehow been led back the way he came? Was there even an end to this grim death march? He didn't know. He just didn't know.

And this was just one deck. On the flight here, he and the others could make out close to 40. At least.

Not knowing what else to do, the echidna slinked desperately onto the steel floor and pounded his spiked right fist into the surface with enough white-hot fury to leave a permanent imprint. As if things couldn't get any worse for him, he felt the cold, hard press of an arm cannon against the back of his neck.

 _Terrific. Just terrific._

"HALT. STATE YOUR BUSINESS." said Egg Gunner model #E-P455XLY, in its distinctive monotone.

Fortunately, Knuckles' years of martial arts training on Angel Island hadn't gone to waste, as he detected the looming shadow before it even said a word. The security droid could not get a shot off before the echidna twisted his upper body toward the right, and a massive spiked fist flew from nowhere to knock the gun into the air. Without even turning his head, Knuckles bent backwards and grabbed the Gunner by its torso, tossing it over his head in a classic wrestling move.

The Gunner's sturdy construction ensured that it stayed intact even as it hit the ground. That was just fine by Knuckles. He needed it alive. Just to make sure that it wouldn't escape, he grabbed the droid's head and pinned it to the floor with an unflinching grip.

Knuckles chose to get straight to the point. "Where are you hiding the Master Emerald?!"

Even though the echidna held the robot by what would be considered its throat, its internal speech processor was not affected. "CLASSIFIED INFORMATION…CANNOT DIVULGE UNDER PENALTY OF DESTRUCTION…"

"I'm not asking twice, punk! Tell me! Or meet a fist!"

As Knuckles tightened his headlock, the bolts holding the robot's head to its shoulders grew more fatigued by the second. A total structural failure was imminent, and the machine's on-board diagnostics ensured that it could sense its own demise. Regardless, the Egg Gunner simply could not do something it was programmed _not_ to do.

"CLASSIFIED INFORMATION…CANNOT DIVULGE UNDER-"

 _Okay, that's it._

Knuckles wouldn't even wait for it to finish its sentence before burying a spiked glove deep within the robot's back. Whatever secrets it carried inside its internal memory would go with it to the junkyard regardless of what he did or didn't do.

"Well… _that_ was a waste of time," he said, as he struggled to free his hand from the sparking and sputtering carcass of what used to be Egg Gunner #E-P455XLY.

The stubborn subordinate had given him absolutely nothing of value, except for what little satisfaction he could muster in destroying it. And even that meager reward brought him no closer to the Master Emerald. He was short on time, and even shorter on leads. There was no choice. He had to go back the way he came, back to the original "sweet spot".

There was, however, one small consolation in all of this. This time, Knuckles didn't need to hold back his speed to check every possible route, angle, or hiding place. This time, there was one route, one angle, and one target.

"I swear…" said Knuckles, under his breath. "…I will bring you back home. No matter what it takes." The guardian set off, waiting for the nauseating sensations of the Master Emerald to consume his consciousness once again.

* * *

"Come on…come on..."

Like the two tails of his that unconsciously jabbed and slammed into each other as they wagged to and fro, two sides of Tails' brain were locked in a brutal struggle. The cold, brutal realist in him said there was next to no chance of a successful trace, that Eggman just wouldn't be that careless. The curious, inventive side of him, the side responsible for the creation of the MilesElectric portable tablet currently in his hands, was simply eager to take its newly-programmed "signal interceptor" function for a test drive. So far, the test looked like a certain failure, if the static blue screen and the blinking white words "SEARCHING FOR SIGNALS…" were any indication.

Certain thoughts ran through the fox's head. Perhaps the problem wasn't that Eggman was one step ahead. Was his machine even working? Could there be something wrong with the program he wrote for the signal interceptor? There was no way to tell at this point. The noises emanating from the device were no louder than those from before he started the test. The urge to quit out of the program further enveloped him with each second of inaction. And yet, each time he hovered his finger over the back button whose touch would have ended the process, he could not bring himself to do so. He had to let it go on. After all, a scientist cannot validate the results of his experiment if he backs out while the experiment is still in progress.

Instead, he stood on that spot in front of the engine control room, shutting out the entire universe around him, staring unblinking at his screen as the words "SEARCHING FOR SIGNALS…" seared itself into his retina and into the rather cheap LCD screen he had procured with what little resources he had at his disposal.

All of a sudden, something came from behind him and twice tapped a finger on his left shoulder.

Tails reacted accordingly to the rude destruction of his personal bubble, emitting a piercing shriek that echoed off the walls of deck 6. When the shock finally settled down, animal instincts took over as he turned around and spread his legs in a fighting position, swinging his two tails in front of him like a furry shield, only to find…

"Sonic?" he asked.

The hedgehog had been standing right behind him for God-knows-how-long, tapping his foot at the speed of a sledgehammer as he waited for any semblance of a response. Now he had it. Tails disarmed himself when he finally realized he was a few seconds away from tail-striking his own friend's head clean off without even knowing it.

"Oh my gosh, Sonic! I am so sorry! I didn't—"

But much to his relief and surprise, Sonic just laughed the whole thing off. "It's okay, big guy! It's just that sometimes you get a little…uh, howdoIsayit… _focused_ every now and then, dontcha think?"

Tails had no reply, simply staring at the ground as his face turned red. The two made a silent agreement to not discuss the incident any further and shift the conversation toward business.

"So…what were you just lookin' at?" Sonic asked.

"Oh, yeah! It's a long shot, but I thought I'd try and save us time by tracing the origin of any wireless signals that pass through here. Basically, it works by a crude system of echolocation wherein the device transmits its own carrier signal, which I encrypted with a special…"

 _That's "basically" to this guy?_ Sonic felt like blurting out, but managed to hold it in the back of his throat.

Watching Tails ramble on about his inventions was almost as much of a wonder to behold as the inventions themselves. Somehow his sapphire blue eyes seemed to glow brighter with each long, technical word that Sonic hadn't even heard of, let alone knew the definition. Under normal circumstances, the hedgehog could have let Tails finish the way he planned to finish…assuming he ever planned to finish at all. However, these were not normal circumstances. The two were on a time crunch. Knowing this, Sonic stuck his open hand out in front of his body, indicating 'stop'.

"So, did you get any of that?" asked Tails, not even stopping to take a breath.

"Well…" said Sonic, his hand cupping his chin as he struggled to come up with an answer. "I _did_ get the 'save time' part. That's for sure."

Tails buried his face in his right hand. Yet again, he realized that he had failed to take into account what different worlds they both came from.

"Okay…" said Tails. "…In short, this program could help lead us straight to the server room!"

"Now _that's_ what I wanna hear!" said Sonic. "At this rate, we'll be in and out of this trash-heap in no time!"

" _If_ it works," said Tails, waving a finger in the air. "Like I said, it's a long shot."

"Hey, if you built it, I'd bet my life on it! And if it doesn't?"

Tails hissed at the most likely possibility. "Well…we'll probably have to search each deck one by one."

"Hey, what's wrong with a li'l' more exploring? I'm always game for _that_!"

"Uh…" Tails had no real answer to the question; after all, he really didn't have a choice in the matter.

Suddenly, both were taken off-guard by a series of beeps from the MilesElectric that came with such abruptness and volume that it nearly caused the fox to drop the machine. When he looked for himself, he noticed that the monotonous blinking message had finally, mercifully, disappeared from the screen.

"What's going on?" Sonic asked, as he rushed over to take a peek at the screen. "Don't tell me somebody's making a phone call all the way up here!"

But Tails paid no mind to his friend's attempt at humor. His eyes were locked on the screen, toward the wealth of information that scrolled by him. At first, mere vocabulary escaped him. He wasn't sure whether to believe its authenticity or not, and kept any thoughts of the notion tucked away to quash any false hope. But when the final confirmation appeared, the words finally came to his tongue.

"We…we got one. Sonic, we've got a signal here! Look at this!"

Slowly, Tails turned his gaze over to Sonic, who stood silent, more than willing to let his younger but far more technologically capable partner take the reins for the moment.

"It's…I've got a lock on the location!" said Tails, half-gasping each word. "It's…yes…"

The MilesElectric's speakers gave off a single, sustained beep, this one even louder than those that came before. Sonic and Tails both leaned in to see what action this noise represented on the tiny LCD screen. A set of three numbers appeared, all changing with every infinitesimal tremor of Tails' clammy gloves. Like the conductor of some electronic symphony, the fox waved the device back and forth, side to side, up and down, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen to make sure the numbers changed according to his movements. They did.

"Th…these are the coordinates…X, Y, and Z, right here!" said Tails, trying to keep himself together. "According to this, the signal's coming from…" He looked toward the ceiling, making an effort to estimate its height from sight alone and compare the estimate to his readings. "…I think it's two decks above us! The server room must be right there!"

"You did it, buddy!" said Sonic, leaping into the air. "I told you it would work!"

Tails only stared down at the shimmering floor of brushed steel, struggling to think of something to say as he absorbed a fur-ruffling pat on the head from the hedgehog. "Heh…I guess today must be our lucky day!"

As Tails' head was still pointed toward the floor, Sonic reached over and grabbed his hand,

"You ready for this?" Sonic asked.

Tails' head shot up. As soon as those sapphire blue eyes of youth and innocence locked onto fiery emerald eyes of passion and determination, any lingering doubts within the fox gently washed away.

"You bet I am!" said Tails.

"Let's make this fun! Last one there pays for lunch!"

"Ha! You're on! I'd like to see _you_ fly up two floors!"

"Oh _ho_! Well, if it's a challenge you want, it's a challenge you'll get!"

With their eyes locked on each other, both crouched and lowered their hands to the floor. Tails revved up his twin appendages until they reached such a speed that they seemed to the naked eye to create one solid, gyrating form. Soon, his tails generated their own field of wake turbulence as he held himself in place, waiting for the right moment.

At the same moment, as if an imaginary starter's pistol had fired, they set off.

Somehow, Sonic had a gut feeling that the end his latest adventure was waiting for him at the hypothetical finish line on Deck 8. One more battle with Eggman, one more trashed baddie, and he would have things wrapped up in a neat little package. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted. Still, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the ride. He would make every remaining second of this adventure count.

* * *

None of this made any sense.

Knuckles returned to the spot that gave him the most fleeting hope of recovering the Master Emerald. He fully expected the first encounter to have been a glitch, his mind simply playing tricks on him…or worse, _Eggman_ playing tricks on him…with _his_ Emerald. But one step into the "sweet spot" undid all of those theories. The very same signals flooded his mind upon re-entry, flooding his ears with shattering noise.

But why? Knuckles had searched this entire area piece-by-piece, and searched it again. He couldn't even see any device or shrine that could harness the power of the Master Emerald, let alone the fabled jewel itself. There had to be something he was missing here.

 _You're hiding from me…I just know it._

However, finding a place where one would hide a four-foot-tall emerald proved to be a daunting challenge. Without a conscious thought of the action passing through him, he turned his head toward the floor while he contemplated this theory…leaving his eyes to stumble across an unremarkable maintenance shaft that rested against the far side wall.

A lightbulb went on over Knuckles' head – a flickering lightbulb, but a lightbulb nonetheless. He could remember seeing maintenance shafts just like that one, usually in pairs that stood directly across from each other against the walls. A closer look at this one told him that it ran through the floor, up the face of the wall, and directly through the ceiling. Much to his surprise, if his theory held true, it was _just_ wide enough for him to snuggle his body inside and through.

It was worth a shot. As far as the Master Emerald was concerned, _anything_ was worth a shot.

The echidna hardly expected anything special to happen as he trundled uncertainly toward the maintenance shaft. But with each step he took, he listened intently as his unlikeliest theory was confirmed. The monotonous ringing in Knuckles' ears grew gradually into a static-like roar of white noise that reduced all other sound around him to meaninglessness.

With the sensations of the Master Emerald rejuvenating his spirit, he charged at the shaft with reckless abandon, fists swinging back and forth. With one step to go before reaching the target, Knuckles delivered a charged punch at the steel piping, shifting all of his body weight into his right arm at that exact moment. A solid chunk of steel broke away, driven all the way into the back of the shaft by the sheer force of Knuckles' blow. The end result was a hole just large enough for an echidna to crawl through to enter the surface.

Not wasting any time, Knuckles shoved his head through the opening, letting his eyes behold the utter blackness below. He had left just barely enough room to slide his left hand through, but as soon as he was ready to force his right hand through, he saw something out of the ordinary. Indeed, to even be able to see _anything_ was out of the ordinary in a narrow shaft with almost no sources of light…but this was different.

The back of his left hand emitted a faint, yet noticeable glow. A _green_ glow. A shade of green that Knuckles was all too familiar with.

 _The Master Emerald! It's here!_

No sooner had Knuckles made the realization than he heard the familiar sounds of metal feet clopping against the floor, echoing from both sides of the shaft. The buzzing and ringing from the emeralds had persisted long enough for him to develop a temporary tolerance to it, enabling him to briefly hear other sounds again while still detecting whether the sensations were present. Though he was in no position to turn his neck to see it for himself, he could sense the danger regardless.

 _More of them?_

"YOU HAVE ENTERED A RESTRICTED AREA," said an Egg Gunner, charging after the echidna with its own built-in weaponry.

"THE PENALTY IS DEATH," its identical partner added.

 _Seriously? What's the penalty for jaywalking here, then?_

His only option for survival was a daring escape through the maintenance shaft. But there was a bit of a problem with that scenario, as most of Knuckles' body was still trapped outside, exposed to enemy fire.

The footsteps drew closer and closer. He frantically tried to shove his right hand through a crack in the opening. However, with each attempt, his entire body rocked back and forth, pushing the hand out of the shaft and undoing any progress. Knuckles growled and seethed with each second that went by with him stuck in the threshold.

"YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO COMPLY," one Egg Gunner said. The next thing Knuckles heard was the familiar sound of the Gunners' arm-rifles being readied for fire.

"Get…in…there!" said Knuckles, swinging his right arm back and forth as far as it would go, hoping to somehow will his massive hand through the tiny crack. Eventually, with his mightiest swing yet, he forced four fingers to squeeze through. To his dismay, however, the rest of the hand did not seem to want to follow. He tried pushing once. Twice. That didn't work. He tried swinging his arm backwards to prepare for another attempt. That didn't work either. Knuckles was now well and truly trapped.

"YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO COMPLY."

It wasn't long before the pinch of the tiny opening began to take its toll on Knuckles' blood circulation. No longer could he even make the attempt to force his hand through. He couldn't feel its presence. He didn't even know where it was. Pins and needles stabbed at his body from all angles, and they weren't coming from any Egg Gunners.

With no other ideas, and his body locked in a position where any other maneuver was out of the question, Knuckles played his last roll of the dice. It was an idea so simple he wished he had thought of it earlier, when he didn't have a mere five seconds to live.

He simply shoved his head forward.

"THREE."

Miraculously, with that one massive exertion of force, Knuckles felt the pinch released from around his torso. In the split-second between the moment and the realization of the moment, he braced for an onslaught of pain from the sharp steel edges of the hole, only for it not to come. The low blood circulation throughout his body numbed him beyond all feeling.

He had more important things to worry about.

"TWO."

His spiked gloves had embedded themselves in the inside of the shaft, leaving his entire backside open to fire. With Knuckles carrying two dead arms, one dead hand, and a body ready to give up the ghost, there was only one strategy left in his bag.

"ONE."

It took more effort than he felt was necessary, but with just milliseconds to spare, Knuckles managed to free his gloves from the wall. Nothing held him back now. It was all up to gravity to ensure Knuckles' safety. And gravity can only carry someone so fast.

"FIRE."

A barrage of bullets burst forth from behind Knuckles' position. The echidna shut his eyes and braced for the searing pain of white-hot lead.

But when the first shots were fired, the only impacts Knuckles could hear were inches above him. All he could feel was the sweet, sweet feeling of air rustling his dreadlocks. With each second that passed, the jarring metallic pings of .44 caliber striking against steel receded off into the distance above him.

Somehow, some way, he had gotten out of this one alive.

* * *

As soon as they reached the first dead end, Sonic and Tails forgot about their supposed race. Both figured that they were better off working together than against each other. (More to the point, neither of them carried any Rings to pay for lunch in the first place.)

Two scorching skid marks on the floor gave away the spot where he slammed on the brakes – and helpfully gave away his location to Tails. When the two reconvened, they closely examined what kind of spot they had gotten themselves into. They had left the cramped, color-coded monotony of Deck 6 behind, only to find themselves in a wide-open jumble of steel beams, pipes, and rotating gears that must have been placed there purely for the sake of intimidating decoration. There seemed to be no end to this room – whatever it was meant for, it was as wide and as tall as the ship itself. It felt like the two had stepped through a portal into another dimension.

Tails stood fastened to the ground and gawked at the ceiling. Somehow, the fact that the room was this vast just didn't translate well in the fox's mind. He could see a ceiling, and depth perception gave him an idea of how high it was, but the rest of his brain refused to accept it. Eventually, the clash between senses took its toll on Tails, causing his head to go light. He stumbled backwards and consciously had to prevent himself from falling over.

Meanwhile, Sonic kept his head pointed straight ahead.

"Uh…Tails?" asked Sonic. "You sure your signal's coming from here?"

"Huh? Oh, right!" said Tails, recovering from his bout with dizziness. Once again, he pulled out the MilesElectric to perform a quick check. "Uh…yeah, looks like we're getting closer."

"Does your Electric thingy come with a map of this place, by any chance?"

"What?" Tails asked, speaking in a manner as if Sonic had just told him he swallowed a whole can of lighter fluid. "Um…no. Why?"

In lieu of a verbal answer, Sonic pointed straight ahead, at the crimson-red wall that stood where an open pathway was supposed to be.

Both inched backwards in order to get a better view of the top of the wall. Staring at them from above was a series of overhanging ledges that led to the decks above, but from where Sonic and Tails stood, there was no way to access any of them directly. There was no turbo-lift, elevator, escalator, spring, magic cloud, or even so much as a bloody staircase that could help them advance. They could even see directly into some of the lower floors, as if the very architecture of the ESS-1 was mocking the two interlopers, teasing them with the promise of access only to yank it away like a carrot on a string. The only alternative now was to turn back and go against the directions from Tails' device.

"Who designed this place, anyway?" Sonic asked.

"Um…Eggman did?"

"Rhetorical question, kiddo."

"Sorry. Sometimes I can't even tell with you."

This was hopeless. It was almost as if Dr. Eggman had designed the ESS-1 to be inaccessible to any outsiders unless they happened to have a private plane or a helicopter at their disposal…

…which Sonic did.

Without warning, Sonic reached his right arm behind him and held out his hand, exactly in front of where Tails stood at that moment. The fox didn't need Sonic to say anything. Years of experience told him exactly what this gesture meant. He clasped hands with Sonic and held on tight as if their lives depended on it. With one swish, Tails set his brushes into a gyrating motion that gained speed with each rotation, eventually growing powerful enough to lift him and Sonic off the ground.

The ascent was slow and methodical, as Tails had to account for a weight imbalance in flight. The MilesElectric was nudged in his left armpit for safekeeping, immobilizing that side of his body for the time being, meaning he only had the use of his right hand to carry Sonic. Despite Tails' efforts, the hedgehog swung perilously from his arm like a pendulum.

"Steady…steady…" said Sonic.

The danger only provoked Tails to push himself harder, if only to get the ordeal over behind them as soon as possible. With each foot they gained, the radius of Sonic's oscillation only grew wider, pulling Tails along with him. The fox closed his eyes and kept his mind on the flight, compensating for direction and speed. The more he thought about who was dangling from his arm, the more chance there was he would lose his grip.

 _Hold on…just hold on…how much longer can this go on?_

"We're here!" said Sonic.

Tails opened his eyes and let out a contented sigh. Just above him, he could see the beginning of the floor of the eighth deck, and its obvious lack of any walls or bars that would separate anyone from accidentally falling over the edge. Then again, if any of Eggman's robots were faulty enough to just walk over that edge, they were a lost cause to begin with.

Just inches from the landing spot, Tails sensed trouble on the horizon.

"Um…Sonic?" Tails asked.

"What's up?"

"I think someone's beaten us here."

A crackly monotone blared over the sound of Tails' whirring blades. "PRIORITY ONE: HEDGEHOG."

Draped across Sonic and Tails' entire field of view were the distinct shadows of five separate Egg Gunners, all spread out in a "V" formation along the ledge of Deck 8. That was the extent of the information they could glean before everything descended into chaos. The combined voices of five Egg Gunners formed a discordant, yet all-too-understandable command: "FIRE."

A hail of bullets burst forth, all converging on one pre-programmed target. The fact that the Gunners had managed to hit nothing but the floor in their haste to destroy the target made little to no difference. The mere sound of the gunfire caused Tails to flinch. Every muscle in his body expanded and contracted within a millisecond. Unfortunately for Sonic, that also included Tails' fingers.

As soon as he realized there was nothing pulling down his right arm, Tails took a quick look below him to make sure that the last thing he could've hoped to happen hadn't happened. It had. He'd let go of Sonic.

Luckily for him, Sonic's reflexes were even quicker than his own mind. Using his other hand, he'd managed to grab ahold of Tails' outstretched wrist. The momentum of the sudden reconnection dragged the two of them back down, forcing Tails to rotate his namesakes faster and faster to correct for the sudden plunge.

The dull ache in his vestigial muscles quickly spread to the surrounding tissue in his upper legs and lower back. He pushed his body harder and harder, straining and tearing against the ever-growing agony, huffing and puffing with every inch of his lungs. And yet all that effort failed to translate into any tangible movement. No matter how hard he pushed himself, ascent just did not happen. He might as well have hit an invisible ceiling. He could practically feel his heart, his lungs…heck, his entire circulatory system bursting at the seams now.

And that was _before_ he noticed his left arm had also been jarred loose of something important.

 _The MilesElectric!_

"No!" Tails shouted at the top of what was left of his lungs.

If he didn't already feel like throwing up, he certainly did now. The success of the entire mission rode on that one little device. And yet…he couldn't just swoop down and retrieve it, at least not with Sonic in tow. Not even a circus contortionist would be able to perform that act. If he really wanted to get the machine back, he would have had to drop Sonic to do so, and that was _never_ an option.

He closed his eyes and cringed for the inevitable fate of his hard work…only to feel Sonic kicking, tossing, swinging wildly on his arm. He was up to something.

The next sound he heard could only be described as a plastic "thunk". When Tails opened his eyes, he saw his device still in the air, still in his direct line of sight. Sonic had swung off to perform a bicycle kick to the MilesElectric as if it was a soccer ball, just to keep it within his arms' length. The machine was just about to fall toward Sonic's only free hand. With no time to spare, he flung his arm forward and…

"Gotcha!" said Sonic. He had saved the MilesElectric, quite literally by the tips of his fingers.

Tails heaved a gaping sigh of relief. "Thanks, Sonic," he said. "You're a lifesaver."

"Don't mention it," said Sonic. "Here ya go!"

The hedgehog handed the device back to Tails, who examined it for any signs of severe damage from whatever miracle Sonic had performed to keep it within reach. Aside from a minor dent in the plastic surface, which matched the curvature of Sonic's shoe, nothing important had been damaged. The screen continued to flash vital information as if nothing ever happened.

For a few uneasy seconds, the two hovered in place just inches away from the wall, moving neither up nor down. The two weren't nearly high enough to see who wanted them dead or how many there were, but they stayed just low enough to conceal themselves from gunfire. That was, until they noticed the visage of an arm-rifle peeking over the ledge. Then another. Then another. Before he knew it, Sonic could feel the searing heat of three separate laser sights, all aimed at the exact same spot on his forehead.

"Tails, now!" said Sonic.

Perhaps it was the adrenaline of the moment, or maybe it was a deep well of strength he never knew he had. But much to even Tails' own surprise, the next great push of his tails catapulted him upwards like a rocket, straight into the Egg Gunners' line of fire.

"Uh-oh…" said Tails, surveying the scene. "Sonic, pull in! Swing up! I dunno, do something!"

"Aye aye, cap'n!" said Sonic, giving a hearty salute. Hoping not to mangle his friend's clavicle into gelatin in the process, he gently swung on Tails' right arm, keeping his legs tucked in to provide as small a target for the firing squad as possible.

 _He is having way too much fun with this…_ Tails thought.

Now with visible targets, the Egg Gunners fired at will, but Tails' flight was just too fast for their built-in weapons to catch up with. He dipped. He dove. He dodged. He did whatever it took to keep Sonic out of the way of the merciless and incessant gunfire, almost taking visual cues from the stunts he put his own plane through on a daily basis.

Soon, enough was enough. Sonic realized he was putting Tails in more danger by hanging on for the ride. Now was the time to strike. With his one free hand, he held up his middle and index fingers, arranged in the traditional V for Victory sign – a signal the two of them had arranged before arriving onboard. Operation Special Delivery was a go.

With one final push, he swooped up toward the nearly unreachable ceiling of the cavernous hall, his flight path forming a tall arc. Just before the apex of the arc, he gently released his vicelike grip on Sonic's hand. The hedgehog descended into unrestrained, terminal free-fall. All five Gunners stood rooted to their spots, firing blindly at a blue dot off in the distance that took the form of Sonic's super-spin.

The unlucky Egg Gunner that stood at the front of the "V" formation was the first to go, standing right in the line of fire. A single spin-dash to its steel frame reduced the once-formidable machine to a pile of junk. Sonic sprang upward from the momentum of the collision and uncoiled himself from his deadly cocoon, taking a brief moment to seek out the next target before curling up again. Just as quickly, in an act that defied all known laws of physics except his own, he burst out of the arc of his bounce and propelled himself toward the nearest Gunner. It met the exact same fate as its brother.

Regardless of the surviving Gunners' attempts to disrupt it with their rifles, the deadly cycle continued. Bounce. Uncoil. Aim. Recoil. Fire. Rinse and repeat. After the fourth knockout left only one droid standing, Sonic – purely on a whim – uncorked and executed a dizzying series of twists, flips, and somersaults unfathomable to any other athlete, all the while laughing to his heart's content as bullet after bullet harmlessly brushed him.

By the time he hurtled back toward the ground, he planted his foot toward the one surviving Egg Gunner. A focused kick to the head disintegrated it upon impact, sending the hedgehog tumbling through the ensuing junk pile. One effortless handspring later, Sonic regained control of himself and landed without a hitch.

Once he finally got the chance, he rose to his feet, observed the smoking ruins of the Eggman Empire before him, and let out a brief whistle. Sometimes he even impressed himself.

With the job done, he turned around to look for Tails. He spotted the fox lying face-down on the floor several yards away, hyperventilating, utterly devoid of energy, his face turned a bright crimson. Despite the gradual development of his special ability over the years, his tails were never meant to withstand that kind of physical torture. The first thing Sonic did upon seeing him was help him to his feet and stabilize his wobbly stance.

"You okay?" Sonic asked, rubbing sweat off his friend's brow.

"I'll…" Tails stopped to cough when his windpipe constricted. "…live." Despite his weakened state, he did hold up his hand for a high-five, which Sonic enthusiastically accepted.

"Hey, don't quote me on this, but I think Eggman tried to pull a fast one on us!"

"You know...you may be on to something!" To test the theory, Tails pulled out his machine, now that he was sure it was safe and sound.

The results flummoxed him. He pulled at his bangs, conceiving numerous possible scenarios that could explain away the inconsistency. But he was just as soon able to debunk each one of them. Nothing made any sense.

"No…" Tails muttered. "No, this isn't right."

"What's going on?" asked Sonic, peeking at the screen even though he knew he had no idea what any of the numbers were supposed to represent.

"If Eggman wanted to lure us here, then the signal would have been tied to those robots. But...you destroyed them all, and yet I'm still picking up the signal! In fact…" He looked more closely at the numbers. "It's counting backwards, and we're just standing still. This is supposed to be a geolocationary system!"

"Gee-oh- _what?!_ "

"It means that the output of the program depends entirely on the location of the device. In this case, when the device gets closer to the signal, the numbers printed out by the program should be lower, and vice versa! But for some reason, all I'm getting is some sort of countdown sequence!"

"A countdown sequence, hmm? So, if I'm getting this right…" said Sonic. "...We were never moving towards this signal at all. The signal was moving toward _us_!"

"Exactly!" said Tails.

Sonic's face swelled with pride. For once, he could keep up with Tails. Heh. Sonic having to keep up with Tails. Now _there's_ something that isn't said every day.

"Which means one of two things have happened," said Tails. "Either there's been a catastrophic mistake in my original program, or…" He took one more look at his screen to make sure thing number two held up to scrutiny, and what he saw caused his face to melt in shock.

The countdown on all three coordinates - X, Y, and Z - was nearing zero.

Tails' command to Sonic was short, but effective.

"Run like hell."

Before either of them could carry that out, a tremendous crash shattered the surface of the floor where the two of them stood, sending them flying in opposite directions.

Both Sonic and Tails hit the steel-reinforced walls head-first and crumpled to the floor on their respective side of the corridor. Before either of them could take so much as a second to comprehend just what was going on, Sonic saw an undefinable silver mass rocketing towards him. Noticing the weapon, he rose off the canvas and made his move. But with his vision clouded by a thick curtain of vivid, color-changing stars, he didn't notice the object until it was too late.

Sonic managed to dodge the missile, allowing it to strike the wall head-on. But like in the game of horseshoes, being close enough actually counted for something. The resulting fireball consumed Sonic, embracing him in its warm, searing arms, scorching every exposed atom of his body and clothing, until the shockwave propelled him back into the outside world. The force of the explosion threw him along the floor, limbs flailing from side to side like a ragdoll.

Grunting and screaming as he did so because his mind told him he had no other choice, Sonic struggled to lift himself. His weary arms and legs struggled against his valiant attempt, but the attack had reduced their will to perform even the most basic functions, putting them into a deep sleep they were reluctant to wake from. There was no chance. It was like hauling a cement truck with only a shoestring. Even as his mind focused on the slowly-growing distance between his face and the ground, his muscles gave up the fight, propelling Sonic back toward the floor where he started.

And then, off to his right, he could swear he heard a familiar voice shouting his name.

As he tilted his head forward, the first thing he noticed was the vague silhouette of a fox emerging through the smoke...no, _fanning_ the smoke in all directions. A gloved hand reached out of the abyss, and Sonic knew right away that he had to take it. In one instant, he was pulled up from the tangle of muscle and bone that was his body. He could stand again. Not without pain, but he could stand again.

"That was close!" said Tails, examining Sonic's body for any external signs of physical damage. Regardless of his friend's concern, Sonic couldn't contain his chuckle. At least he knew Tails was safe.

For the moment.

"Get back! Now!" Sonic shouted. When he was only met with a mild "What?", Sonic forced the issue by shoving Tails behind his back himself.

"What's going on...here?" asked Tails, his breath escaping him on the last word. He only needed to look above the hole in the floor to see the culprit.

At the center of it all, floating effortlessly like some kind of holy apparition, was something oddly familiar to Sonic…yet different. He could tell it was roughly his height, but covered head to toe in gold that reflected every surface around it. Its form factor resembled Sonic himself – from large head to smaller body to rod-like legs to larger feet. Yet where normally Sonic's hair would protrude downward, the spikes on this entity rose toward the heavens, almost defying gravity were it not for the fact that these "quills" were clearly constructed from a metal alloy.

"Is...is that..." Tails said.

The glowing red eyes, stabbing into their souls each time they flashed against a murky black backdrop, provided the final piece to the puzzle.

"You…" said Sonic, the very word slithering from his tongue.

"Well, Sonic?" said the entity. Even its _voice_ was Sonic's, only with a distinct electronic tinge to it. "Are we game for that… _rematch_?"

* * *

 **There should be a big white box below this bolded text. Feel free to use it at your own convenience.**


	3. Unfinished Business

**I'm sorry this took so long. The process behind this was a process I swear I will never repeat. Basically, I wrote this chapter in chunks. That way, if I didn't like how the chapter was panning out, I could simply replace one chunk with another chunk and smooth the cracks over. Things didn't work out that way, and I spent ages trying to find out how to make this battle scene work. What I'm really afraid of at this point is that I've used up every narrative convention and cliché I know and that I'm just repeating them over and over.**

 **A reader on DeviantArt (thanks a bunch, Blazerona!) pointed out a sentence in the last chapter that inexplicably repeated itself. No, I did not intend to write it that way; it happened after I saved the file to a cloud and some kind of conflict arose. But I still should've caught it. In response, I have gone back and edited the previous two chapters for similar atrocities, undid previous edits which were meant to tie into the deleted second chapter, and added new scenes and dialogue.**

 **Remember, reviews keep my creative juices flowing! Even if you're uncomfortable at peer reviewing, I need all the feedback I can get, whether positive or negative.**

 _ **(Psst...I don't think the Metonic shippers out there are gonna like this one very much...)**_

* * *

 _Punch. Climb. Release. Punch. Climb._

 _Uuuuuugh._

With each pull of his arms, Knuckles found it harder and harder to ignore the feeling that something was wrong. Gone was the numbness that once immunized him to the wounds on the sides of his body, replaced with a stabbing pain that reached down to his gut. Worse yet, he could feel the blood slide down his legs, tickling each piece of fur on the way down like a wet feather. Still, there was nothing Knuckles could do to cover the wounds. His hands were otherwise occupied holding up the entire weight of his body as he ascended the maintenance shaft.

But it wasn't just the _sides_ of his body that hurt.

Each pull brought him closer to the top, and closer into the faint green light that bathed the shaft. There lay the mystery that had eluded him since the moment he set foot on the ship. His sixth sense acted accordingly, sending him flashes that increased in intensity the closer he got. But it was telling him something else...something troubling. He couldn't put a finger on it, but it felt familiar. It brought him back in time to a memory he would have rather forgotten, where everything could have been wiped out in the blink of an eye...

Knuckles pulled himself back to reality. Everything could be wiped out in the next hour if he didn't get his red echidna butt moving. He'd already wasted enough time. No force on this earth could keep him from the Master Emerald for a second longer.

 _Just...a little more..._

The negative sensations only intensified, as if something drilled a hole inside Knuckles' skull. His vision, already impaired in the dark, cramped space, washed over with blinding pellets of noise. What little signs of light he noticed before seemed to vanish.

Then he saw it.

Five horizontal columns of light poked through the darkness, illuminating a metal ventilation grate. He brought himself to its eye level and clawed over to the opposite side of the cylindrical shaft to take a peek through.

 _No...oh, Chaos, no..._

On the opposite side of the grate, the Master Emerald was perched on a hastily-assembled shrine, wires attached to every surface of the iridescent jewel as if it were under intensive care. The once-constant green glow faded dramatically between full power and complete darkness, with almost no in-between. As far to the left as Knuckles could see from his limited perspective, he could make out a computer monitor perched on the wall, no doubt giving readouts of the Master Emerald's energy.

Knuckles' head exploded, and it wasn't just his sixth sense that triggered it. The Master Emerald had been _violated_...taken advantage of for power. He'd burst into the room and tear the whole place to shreds if the grate weren't so damned tiny.

All the pieces came together in Knuckles' head. If his theory held up, Sonic and Tails were in grave danger. Lucky for him he never got around to crushing Tails' annoying earpiece.

* * *

If Eggman's robots were built with facial muscles, Metal Sonic would have a Cheshire grin a mile wide. He had every reason. For once, _he_ was looking down on _Sonic_ , and not the other way around. A new set of crosshairs appeared in Metal Sonic's information-enhanced point of view, closing in around the boundaries of Sonic's body in the frame. Once an identification match was confirmed, with the help of a picture of Sonic that Dr. Eggman helpfully stored in his internal memory, a blinking red message appeared before him: "BEGIN TERMINATION PROCEDURE".

Not that he needed the hint. He had waited a year for this moment.

Below him, Sonic and Tails glared at the golden apparition, all the while trying in vain to hide their own fatigue. Metal Sonic forced Sonic and Tails to drink in his own magnificence as he descended from the rafters, arms held out at his sides, looking nothing less than the angel of death. Below his feet, clouds of rocket exhaust billowed out to herald his landing, forcing the two to turn away and squirm backward to avoid inhaling the noxious fumes. As the exhaust cloud loomed ever closer, they each met with a sudden bang against hollow steel piping, stopping them in their tracks.

They had backed all the way to the crude safety railing that separated them from falling two stories. From that point, there was nowhere for them to go but down.

There _were_ doors up ahead. Plenty of them. Twenty or so, by Tails' count, give or take two that might have been obscured by Metal Sonic's presence. However, they were all sealed, each one flanked by a numeric keypad on the side wall on which, presumably, one of Eggman's robotic assistants would enter the passcode to pry it open. Whatever dark secrets lay on the other side were obscured. All possible escape routes were cut off.

No way back. No way forward. No way up. The only way out was to fight.

Even with his eyes glazed over in pure terror, Tails couldn't help but notice something oddly familiar. A bright, piercing golden aura surrounded Metal Sonic, illuminating the entire area and casting well-defined shadows in every direction. It was almost a carbon copy of the scene that usually followed Sonic's super transformation.

Emphasis on "almost".

He was the only one presently in the room to have ever gotten a first-hand look at such a scene from an outsider's perspective, and yet even with his genius-level intelligence, he would be hard-pressed to put into words the raw, surging emotions he felt each time Sonic "went Super" – as was the crude term they came up with. No matter the level of danger they faced, no matter how close they brushed against death, Sonic's golden aura of positive energy was enough to convince the world that everything was going to be okay. Even as a mere spectator from several feet away, the glow felt as warm and comforting as cozying around a warm fireplace even as the harsh winter closed in from outside.

But this was different. In Metal Sonic's presence, Tails felt nothing of the sort. He felt nothing, period. Metal Sonic's aura was not warm, or comforting, or in any way positive. Not that anyone should have expected it to be, of course. It was just... _there_ , surrounding him almost as a display of power for power's sake, just to show he could make one out of thin air. Or worse.

Inches above the floor, Metal Sonic's rocket boosters cut out, allowing him to land face-to-face with the two. Sonic took this opportunity to examine his own reflection in his counterpart's shimmering golden finish. Naturally, he came to admire it, despite the cuts and bruises he sustained not two minutes earlier.

"Say...nice paint job, Metal!" said Sonic. "Really brings out your eyes, y'know?"

"So...you do remember me," said Metal, in an all-too-perfect synthesized replication of the real Sonic's voice. "And yet, after all this time, you thought I had vanished into thin air?"

Sonic made a noise that could only be described as half-cough, half-scoff. "Yeah...wouldn't say I've been cryin' my eyes out over it."

"Really? Well, I can arrange _that_."

Tails could no longer hold himself together. He stepped out from behind Sonic's shadow and pointed an accusing finger at Metal Sonic. "Where's Eggman? What did you do with him this time? Is this _your_ ship?" he asked.

"Oh, that? That was _eons_ ago. Believe me, if I was up to _that_ kind of nonsense again, I wouldn't have bothered to keep up this level of subtlety," said Metal Sonic.

"Believe _you_? Hmph. Yeah, right." asked Sonic.

Without even realizing it, his head nudged closer to that of his metal counterpart. Soon enough, Metal Sonic's drill-shaped approximation of a nose poked against Sonic's organic, beady sniffer. As the two stared each other down, Sonic found himself permanently locked into a staring contest with a competitor who couldn't blink, whose eyes were merely tools for intimidation that never surfaced. They weren't merely staring into the face of a longtime rival. They each gazed into their own inverted image; Sonic's streaming blue quills contrasting with Metal Sonic's reflective golden paint scheme, Sonic's vibrant and passionate emerald-green and white eyes gazing into Metal Sonic's cold, heartless red and black.

Eventually, Tails grew tired of standing around. Something had to happen soon, if only to get this over with sooner. He poked his finger into the back of Sonic's shoulder once. Twice.

No response.

He decided not to press the issue any further. After all, if years of experience taught him anything, there was method to Sonic's madness. As far as he was concerned, this was Sonic's Super-Happy Adventure Thrill Ride, and he was only tagging along. Stopping the ride while it was in progress would only turn out badly for all involved.

"If you must know...I don't care who or what you ' _believe_ '. I am far beyond that... _imposter_ you met last time," said Metal Sonic, seemingly spitting on the "I" word...that is, if Eggman's robots had any saliva. "I am far beyond _you_. Far beyond any of this...crude matter you call life."

Sonic sighed and shook his head. "It's always the same ol', same ol' with you, isn't it? Tryin' to make the whole world pay for your insecurity? Well, shove this into your hard drive! There is only one Sonic in this room, and I ain't lookin' at 'im!"

Though Metal Sonic had no visible mouth, a faint chuckle could be detected from the mere bobbing of his head. "You fool...you imply that I want to keep up _that_ old charade?"

"Don't-"

But whatever witty repartee Sonic planned on using plummeted back down his throat. He stepped back and replayed what Metal Sonic just said, unsure if he even heard it right.

 _All right, what crazy pills did Eggman feed him THIS time?_

"Being the 'real Sonic'…keeping up with _you_? Hah! It means nothing to me anymore. _You._ Mean. Nothing. Why would I dare limit myself to such... _pitiful_ standards, when the entire _world_ is within my grasp?" said Metal Sonic.

Sonic rolled his eyes, calling attention to it by bobbing his head – a faux-dramatic gesture that Metal Sonic either failed to detect or simply pretended not to notice.

"Heh…pretty big talk for a three-time _loser_ ," said Sonic, in the most mocking, singsongy tone he could manage.

As he turned away to let Metal Sonic absorb the barb, a distinct whirring sound from the other side convinced him to turn his gaze back.

The air itself swirled around his palms in an ever-increasing vortex, obscured by pinpricks of light that represented energy in its purest form. Soon, those pinpricks faded into a glowing ball from which miniature bolts of lightning shot forth. With a short burst of his rocket boots, he rose off the floor and wound his arms into a sidewinder throwing motion. The staring contest was over. Metal Sonic had blinked. Sonic spared a quick glance at Tails and realized this was a bad time to stand directly next to each other.

"Move!" they each said in unison.

With one lunging step, Tails took the mightiest dive he could manage, arms outstretched with the MilesElectric in unsteady hands. For an inch or two, his nose scraped against the floor, churning his stomach at the prospect that the rest of his body would follow and leave him an open target for Metal Sonic. Then, just when he needed it to, the motion of his tails kicked in, providing the lift he needed.

Without warning, the fur on Tails' backside and head shot up. This couldn't have been some sort of internal bodily reflex caused by his own excitement. If it was, this would have happened the moment he stepped onto the ship. Behind him, a thundering roar split the air, throwing Tails for a loop. When he turned around to get a look at the source of the noise, he noticed a charred black crater in the floor where the two had previously stood, and a pair of skid marks just inches in front of it. Tails didn't need to be a forensic scientist to realize which direction those skid marks pointed.

Forwards. _Into_ the danger.

A lump formed in Tails' throat. When they said to move, they didn't specify where.

Not taking any chances, Metal Sonic indexed every single file in every single folder on his considerable file system, leafing through essential drivers, blueprints, and documents, tossing aside anything that did not bear the name of the file he needed. Within the amount of time it took Sonic to take a single step, the task was completed, and a command appeared before him on the scan-lined viewscreen that represented his view of the world.

"EXECUTE WEAPON-PRESET 'BLITZKR . egg'"

Without sparing a moment for showmanship, Metal Sonic fired off more energy blasts toward the onrushing hedgehog as fast as he could charge them up. He fired in an arc from left to right to left, gradually moving the line of fire back toward the ground directly below him, making sure that any earth where Sonic might have set foot would be scorched along with the hedgehog himself. Each blast struck the floor with a blinding flash of light and a deafening roar, leaving smoking, bubbling indentations so close together that cracks started to form between them.

Yet through the savagery, a familiar blue flicker danced around certain death, bouncing over the energy balls before they even struck the ground, zipping through the tiny cracks between impact zones. Metal Sonic increased the rate of fire, but still Sonic effortlessly navigated the maze of cracks that consumed the floor. The green on-screen targeting reticule that guided Metal Sonic's fire was unable to cope with the lofty demand, jumping about in all directions in a hopeless attempt to follow something it could not possibly follow.

Something in Sonic's head clicked. How he knew, even _he_ didn't exactly know. But he knew. He had reached the sweet spot.

" _Heads up, faker!"_

One well-aimed shot could end this battle before it started. With inches to spare, Sonic leapt headfirst for Metal Sonic and curled into a spin attack, and braced for the usual shower of smashed circuit boards, shorted wires, and infinitesimal capacitors that pierced his body as he thrust himself through the brains of the machine.

All he got was a dull thud.

No bending, no flexing, no sign of damage. He just... _bounced_ off Metal Sonic.

What? Did...did he just...

His spin attack could deflect hollow-point bullets, cut the strongest of steel alloys into ribbons, tunnel through miles of the earth's surface without breaking much of a sweat…and yet this… _clone_ held up to it without taking so much as a scratch.

Before he could even consider the variables that could lead to that result, he had to coordinate his own landing. His fears were confirmed the instant he looked up: Metal Sonic came out completely unscathed. All Sonic managed to do was knock him a few feet out of the air, for which he could easily compensate with his rocket boosters.

Almost the second after he landed, Tails rushed to his side. He had only one question: "What the heck just happened over there?"

"Buddy, I was just about to ask you the same thing..." said Sonic, rubbing his head. Tails shrugged, his mouth still agape. For once, he didn't have the answer Sonic needed.

Metal Sonic crept ever closer to the two, making sure the sound of his laughter would drown out any conversation the two could possibly carry out. Gently, he decreased the power of his rocket boosters, allowing himself to drop to the ground.

"Was _that_ the best you could do?!" he asked.

Sonic's expression was reinvigorated by the personal challenge, draining all sense of shock from his eyes. "Heh...I'm just getting warmed up!" he said.

"Is that so?" said Metal Sonic.

Even as Metal Sonic spoke, the engine inside his chest cavity slowly purred and roared into life. When it reached a specific speed, a spark ignited, and a trail of blue flames burst out of his backside.

"So am I," he added.

The pocket of air immediately surrounding him vibrated, tore, and rippled with the sound of the initial blast before settling back into place, as if oxygen itself feared for its safety in Metal Sonic's presence. Only specialized boots kept him bolted to the ground, preventing him from careering into Sonic and Tails right then and there. Without a second thought, Sonic turned toward his partner, knowing deep down that he might not get another chance.

"Back off, Tails!" said Sonic, pointing his finger forcefully at the ground. "It's _me_ he wants!" But Tails didn't even need the signal. One look into Sonic's eyes told him more than he needed to know.

"But...but I...thought he said…" said Tails.

"That's what he _says_ ," said Sonic, flashing his trademark thumbs-up. "But trust me. He'll change his tune soon enough."

"Sonic, wait!" shouted Tails. "He's..."

But it was too late. It had been too late from the time he opened his mouth. While Metal Sonic was still boosting in place, Sonic charged forward with everything he had.

The first die had been cast. Sonic's first step triggered Metal Sonic to unclamp his boots from the floor, releasing all his stored energy in the form of raw, uncontained speed. Two unstoppable forces converged on one another, racing to become the first to the center of an imaginary battlefield, each lowering their heads for the inevitable collision. Tails braced himself as well, gripping the MilesElectric firmly to his chest with both arms.

It took less than a second for the two forces to plow head-first into one another. The energy of one directly counteracted the energy of the other, and there was nowhere else for it to go but outward, resulting in a shockwave that resounded across the massive expanses of the ESS-1. Tails barely managed to get his feet off the ground before the blast consumed him and his precious device.

In an instant, both Sonic and Metal Sonic found their forward motion curtailed completely. No matter how far Sonic pushed the limits of his speed, his shoes slipped and slid across the floor with each step, pushed beyond even the limits of their endurance. The same held true for Metal's afterburners, held into submission by Sonic's sheer persistence. Even as they pushed their ailing engines harder and harder, neither one of them was willing to give an inch. The unstoppable forces had become immovable objects.

Grunting and straining as his muscles screamed out for mercy, a Gallic smile was fixed on Sonic's face.

"Tryin' to…pass yourself off as _Super_ Sonic now…are ya?" he asked, struggling for each word. "Let's see…if you're as fast as him!"

His feet skidded across the floor at speeds that would propel him to Mach 3 under normal circumstances. Under _these_ circumstances, however, his shoes kicked up a plume of thick, grey smoke from the constant friction of rubber and metal. On the other side, Metal Sonic's rocket fire had long since surpassed the melting point of the steel floor, creating a puddle of silver magma that bore all the way down to the core. Second by second, Metal Sonic's head pressed itself deeper and deeper against Sonic's skull, crushing blood vessels flat, forcing vital cranial fluids into retreat, sending a rush of throbbing pain across his forehead. It seemed inevitable that the whole structure would crack open and collapse in on itself at any moment. But until it did, Sonic reached deeper into his reserves for that one extra helping of strength that would force Metal Sonic back.

Suddenly, a feeling of weightlessness jolted through Sonic's every nerve. What was happening? He couldn't turn his head, but he could turn his eyes toward the ground. That's when it came to him – familiar debris marks on the floor began to _move_. Forwards.

Metal Sonic was pushing him back.

 _What is this thing even made of?! Urgh...doesn't matter...I'll tear through it no matter how long it takes!_ Sonic thought.

There was no recourse left for Sonic. He had to reach the upper limit of his speed, a point that even he wasn't sure of. And yet…had he reached it already? His legs simply wouldn't accept a command to "go faster". Blood vessels and lungs, already conditioned to the rigors of hypersonic travel, were on the verge of exploding. Just one more burst of effort, it seemed, would be enough for the whole system to shut down. Yet for all of that, Sonic still lost precious ground against Metal Sonic's ferocious assault.

He couldn't escape that. In fact, it consumed him. His brain no longer listened to any impulses from tortured nerves begging him to give in. He _couldn't_ give in. He couldn't accept the mere _concept_ of giving in. Not after he had come this far. Sonic readied himself for his last valiant sprint...

…and took one bad step. That was all Metal Sonic needed.

For a fraction of a second, Sonic's stumble forced both his feet above the ground, where his friction-enhanced rubber soles would be useless in holding him steady. With no opposing force to keep him in check, Metal Sonic shot forward like a bullet, dragging a stunned Sonic with him. By the time he even noticed where he was, Sonic's face, chest, and shoulders had all come into contact with the floor, spewing a trail of blood from his facial wounds. He came to rest just inches short of the same wall where he had been attacked earlier, with his limbs thrown about into positions they were never intended to occupy.

A thick curtain of indistinct noise clouded his vision, causing him to lose a grip on his normally-keen sense of orientation. As he struggled to his knees, he couldn't tell which way his head was pointed. He blinked once. He blinked twice. It made no difference; the fog was imprinted upon his eyes. The simple act of tilting his head forward brought an unwelcome splash upon Sonic's upper lip. A nosebleed, once a mere trickle, soon became a mighty waterfall that threatened to engulf his entire face. Any effort he made to snort back the rush was futile.

After doing a complete aerial circuit of the room, Metal Sonic came to a stop hovering just over Sonic's body. He slowly brought his head down closer to Sonic's level to further twist the knife.

"I win," he said.

After a few seconds, Sonic noticed a shrill ringing sound in his ears, a common side effect of a concussion. But...that didn't make any sense. They weren't ringing _this_ much even in the first moments after he struck the ground. This wasn't a ringing sound...it was a _whirring_ sound. It couldn't have been in his head. Metal Sonic was up to something.

A harsh blue light suddenly poked through his sealed eyelids, jolting him to force them open. Vague, formless streaks of blue light dotted Sonic's vision, in tune with the movements of Metal Sonic's left hand. A blue orb of light emerged from the inside of the robot's palm, charged up with an unseen, amorphous weapon. Sonic didn't need telling what it was. He needed to _move_. But this time, of all times, he couldn't. Each time he tried to forget about his injuries and keep moving, the pain only intensified, keeping him glued to the floor. The urgency of the situation did little to infuse him with life – a life that could be extinguished in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly, he felt a hand grip tightly onto his right wrist, yanking his entire arm up in one swift motion. And then the expressions changed.

"Don't count your eggs before they hatch," said Sonic, with a smirk. The Tails Express had arrived right on schedule.

Soon, the rest of his body gracefully ascended from the floor, leaving an empty-eyed Metal Sonic aiming at nothing but the opposite-side wall. His targeting reticule bounced around his line of sight, searching for someone who wasn't there. The doppelganger looked up, only to find Sonic waving back at him as he dangled off the arm of his savior.

Tails carried Sonic as far away from Metal Sonic as possible, buying them time to come up with a new strategy. Sonic closed his eyes, letting the rush of the wind renew his life force and permeate his body and soul. He felt normal again. No... _better_ than normal. He felt like he could take on the world. But Tails saw the world in a different way. A significant portion of his view was consumed by Sonic's gashed, bruised head. His nosebleed oozed onto Tails' right arm as it held him aloft. And this was just his _head_. Tails shuddered at the thought of the possible injuries to the rest of his body, which he hadn't been able to see yet.

"I tell ya, buddy..." said Sonic. "I don't know what I'd do without you!"

"Oh, Sonic..." said Tails, his voice cracking. "What did he do to you?"

"Nothin' I haven't gotten through before!" said Sonic, flashing a thumbs-up with his one free hand. "And I'll get through this!"

"Not without me, you won't! The only way we can beat this thing is if we do it together! He was built to destroy _you_ …hate _you_ …but I don't think he's prepared to take on _both_ of us!"

Sonic beamed. Apparently _someone_ was listening to his impromptu sermons on teamwork.

"Turn this ship around, cap'n!" he said. "Let's get 'im!"

"Yeah!"

Tails made a tight 180-degree turn, leaving Sonic to swing dangerously off to the side. But he would never let go – not of Tails' hand, nor of this moment. For one fleeting moment, hope triumphed over despair. There was a chance they could pull this off.

It took only one second for that chance to be snuffed out. The entire cavernous space on the ESS-1 flashed with a sudden burst of illumination, and the room temperature shot up several degrees.

"What the heck-" Sonic asked.

In the blink of an eye, a blinding white laser streaked across the air, buzzing past Sonic's head. A sudden pull of gravity forced Sonic back to the left, taking him out of the beam's path with a split-second to spare. Tails was pulled into a temporary state of shock by the flash, just long enough for him to forget what he was even doing. Without him realizing it, his tail-blades momentarily came to a halt, only for him to fire them up again when the two began to drop out of the air like rocks.

A deafening metal crash above them commanded their attention. When they looked up, they beheld the full effect of Metal Sonic's weapon for the first time. A steel beam on the ceiling had melted through as if it were a chocolate bar, and flashed a bright orange on the edges of where the laser had struck it. The blast destroyed the joints connecting it to the ceiling, causing the two-ton object to break free from its chains and swing on its one remaining hinge. Miraculously, the hinge held up, preventing the beam from collapsing.

"Whoa!" said Sonic, just after the noise settled. "Evasive maneuvers!"

The room lit up a second time, but Tails, recognizing the cue, made a swift turn to the right. Sonic's legs escaped incineration from the second laser by mere inches.

"You're kidding me! He's got _lasers_ now?" asked Tails.

"Apparently!" said Sonic.

Tails' heart rate soared with the anticipation of the next one. He was trapped in a virtual thunderstorm, dreading the next flash of lightning that could strike at any moment. His right arm shook like pure jelly down to the wrist, where his glove became soaked in sweat that dripped off his brow. His mind whizzed between stations, with so many things to keep track of at the same time. Airspeed, heading, Sonic's status on his right arm, the status of the MilesElectric still lodged in his left arm, when the next laser could strike and what the best strategy was to avoid it. He had committed himself to the world's most dangerous aerial juggling act.

"Hold on tight, buddy! This could get rough!" said Sonic.

As if in reply, Sonic heard a voice crackle to life in his left ear. But it wasn't Tails'. He was too preoccupied to talk. He couldn't tell what it was saying in the middle of the chaos, but its identity came to him soon enough.

"Knuckles?!" said Sonic.

"What?!" asked Tails. "Where?!"

"On the ear-thingy! Didn't you hear him?"

Tails made another 180-degree turn, so that they might be able to at least get enough quiet to make out what Knuckles had to say – hastily pulling Sonic above a fourth laser in the meantime. Finally, the two landed on the next floor down, buying themselves time for at least a few seconds of conversation. On this deck, they ran into the exact same layout – a wide enclosure with multiple locked security doors blocking the way forward. It was no less wide and no less deep than the deck above, but given the circumstances, somehow it didn't feel that way.

"Guys! You've got to listen to me!" shouted Knuckles. "You're in grave danger!"

The few seconds expired. Another flash, and the ceiling above Sonic and Tails rumbled and shook, knocking a tile to the floor.

"Tell me something I don't know!" said Sonic.

The ear-piercing sounds of battle, destruction, and desperation clued Knuckles in. His discovery had come too late. Still, better late than never. On Sonic and Tails' floor, more blasts came from above. More tiles fell from the ceiling. Metal Sonic _dared_ the two to come back up and face him.

"Listen, there's something more! I don't know what's going on, but I can feel it! It's as if...as if the Master Emerald itself is being warped and distorted and...!" said Knuckles.

"Would you just get to the point?!" said Sonic.

"It's negative Chaos Energy! Only it's more concentrated than I've ever felt it! It's...almost tearing me apart!"

Negative. Chaos. Energy. Three words that brought shivers through the spines of anyone who knew their significance. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were three of the unlucky ones who experienced their effects first-hand on multiple occasions. They could add _this_ occasion to the list.

It turned out Metal Sonic's resemblance to Super Sonic wasn't a mere design choice after all.

"Wait, are you saying you've _got_ the Emerald?" asked Tails.

"No...it's locked away. There's only one entrance to the chamber, and I can't break through. Believe me, I've tried," said Knuckles, rubbing his sore fists.

The sound of a rocket engine overpowered Knuckles' tinny voice, capturing Sonic and Tails' attention. Just beyond the ledge of the deck hovered Metal Sonic, with yet another laser at the ready. With little time to think, Sonic grabbed hold of Tails' wrist and yanked him along for a supersonic dash to the opposite end of the hallway. The next laser fired on their initial positions and gradually moved toward their current ones.

"You wanna speed this one up?" asked Sonic, as he and Tails made a perfectly-timed jump over the oncoming laser to save themselves from certain death.

"There's a passcode, and no one here is nice enough to give it to me straight! I need Mr. Hacker over there to let me in!" said Knuckles.

Tails gulped. "Wait…I—"

"Go! I'll keep 'im busy!" said Sonic.

"Wait, what? What happened to sticking together?!" asked Tails. "I thought…"

"We are sticking together…all _three_ of us! Knuckles needs you right now!"

"Are you crazy?! You wanna fight that monster yourself?! He's got the Master Emerald on his side!"

"Don't worry! I can handle it!"

That was a hard sell to Tails, now that he could actually see the extent of the cuts and bruises throughout Sonic's entire body. Tails couldn't help but wonder if Sonic was hiding an even deeper pain from him, but if this were the case, it seemed nothing less than betrayal to not be there for him. He stared into his own reflection in the MilesElectric's screen, and then back at Sonic, hoping that his mere aura of fortitude could force a decision.

The next moment, Metal Sonic fired off yet another laser, forcing them to dive in opposite directions.

"Hey, you said we were gonna have to 'wing it', right?" said Sonic.

That was all Tails needed. He scrambled to his feet, jumped to avoid the laser beam, and soared over the ledge back down to Deck 6 where they started. If this fight was going to be won, his place wasn't with Sonic. His place was among machines. Ironically enough, so was Sonic's. He rose to his feet, standing with a slight wobble, but no less tall and proud. He had been beaten up. But he hadn't been _beaten_.

"All right, faker. The kid gloves are _off_!" said Sonic. "It's just you and me now!"

* * *

"Yes, indeed, my little... _rodent_ ," said Dr Eggman, pure venom dripping from that last word.

Far away, on the bridge of the ESS-1, chaos reigned. Assistant robots ran from position to position, gathering and processing information. Readings of structural damage and core temperature spewed from laser printers, only to be ignored. Nothing could divert Eggman's attention away from the viewscreen as he watched the fight unfold. The undercard was over. The main event was about to begin.

" _And that's just the way I want it_."

* * *

 **There should be a big white box below this bolded text. Feel free to use it at your own convenience.**

 **On the next Supernova: The race to shut down the ESS-1!**


	4. Juggling Tasks

"The cat's out of the bag, Metal! I know your secret! That means I can _really_ cut loose!" said Sonic, ducking out of the way of another Chaos Spear.

"Is that supposed to be a threat? You haven't tasted a fraction of my _real_ power," said Metal Sonic.

"Come on, then! Show me whatcha got!"

The moment a stunning flash of blue light illuminated the room, and a sudden blast of warmth raced through Sonic's body, he realized he would have been better off keeping his mouth shut.

 _Just missed that one. Ow. Don't think about it, don't think about it…ow._

Sonic couldn't help but think of an old saying Knuckles told him once. When exactly, he couldn't remember, but perhaps it was after that one time he kept trying to jump from Angel Island all the way back to shore in one go, just to see if he could do it. It was something along the lines of, "Insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting different results." Strange how such things lingered in the deepest corners of his mind, ready to be ignored until the moment he needed them the most. Maybe he _was_ insane. Maybe he was doing the only thing he knew how to do. Or maybe he was doing the only thing that _could_ be done. Who knew? It didn't have to be mutually exclusive.

Somehow this had seemed a lot easier in his head before the battle started. Take on a super-powered being, alone, with nothing to aid him except for the fists and feet he was born with. Big deal, right?

It was as if somebody had dangled a carrot on a string in front of him. Metal Sonic was right there. Just floating there, snug and secure in his own superiority. Taunting him. Ducking out from his aura of protection every so often to fire a Chaos Spear or two. Or twelve. One of them pierced the steel floor mere inches in front of Sonic, reducing it to molten sludge. Only a quick step to his left saved him from having his head caved in. Another two followed, forcing him back to his right. He could feel the radiant heat from each blast as they struck the ground, the microscopic fragments of shrapnel from the floor nipping at his legs. Explosive masses of fire singed away at fur that was already battered and blackened, tickling his lower extremities as they expended every morsel of energy they possibly could.

Try as he might, he couldn't blot out the pain. One does not simply shove aside the feeling of sprinting on hamstrings that have been twisted like pretzels. He couldn't even remember the last time his feet weren't in constant motion. Five minutes ago? Ten? Eternity. Eternity chased him down from behind with each energy blast that struck the ground. Speed was survival. Slowing down was certain death.

Sonic was never more alive.

"Heh! Is this supposed to scare me? I don't think you know me too well!" he said.

"On the contrary, hedgehog…" said Metal Sonic. "…I know more about you than you know about yourself."

"What's there to know? I'm just a guy who loves adventure…and smashing _copycats_!"

Sonic shot off into the distance with a hop, skip, and jump, turning back just long enough to leave a devilish sneer…almost as if he knew what was coming. Sure enough, a thunderous spike shook the ground into a seismic jolt, sending up a cloud of indescribable light and smoke and particle dust, accurate to within an inch of Sonic's projected position. Unfortunately for Metal Sonic, it was an inch _behind_.

"You dare to tie my ambitions to an insignificant blowhard such as yourself? _You dare?_ " The words flowed softly out of Metal Sonic at first, almost _too_ softly to be heard over the rapid fire of his laser cannon. But his uncontained fury built up in a grand crescendo, spilling out with the frustration of seeing Sonic cheat death again and again, always by the skin of his teeth. "Your stature in existence is meaningless! Nothing more than a pale blue dot in the void!"

Normally, Sonic would have a witty comeback or two in reserve. But this time around, his stockpile had run dry. His mind was otherwise occupied on higher-priority tasks such as not dying.

"Whereas I…" Metal Sonic continued.

 _Now_ , Sonic thought. And kept thinking. He planted his foot firmly in the ground, preparing to launch the attack that would end this prolonged and bitter stalemate. But every time he thought he saw his chance, it turned out to be a mirage, and a sudden blast of laser fire nudged him back to reality, forcing him back at the last moment.

"… _I_ am merely a cog—"

"You certainly are," Sonic cut in.

 _There it was._

Metal Sonic kept going, as if Sonic didn't even exist. "…a cog in a machine far greater than your feeble mind could dare to imagine!"

The wounds in his legs only deepened with each step he took, leaving behind a conspicuous trail that marked his impromptu serpentine, zig-zagging, spiraling path around the ship's deck. Fear and adrenaline played their eternal game of tug-of-war with Sonic's nerves, rendering him paralyzed in a euphoric tingling sensation that compelled him toward the light. Raw, synaptic impulses from his sympathetic nervous system mounted a daring assault on his impenetrable sense of justice.

Daring, but futile. Not even the harshest twists and strains of his muscles could wipe the defiant smile off his face.

Each missed laser blast took out another section of floor, and Sonic was running out of unblemished sections of the surface to roam upon. Every time his glance happened to fall upon the twenty or so security doors at the other side of the room, his nerves couldn't help but catch fire. It would be nice if one of them… _just one_ …would conveniently open up for him.

Metal Sonic just kept talking, and talking, and _talking_. Whatever he was saying, it made no difference to Sonic, even if he could understand it. After long enough, the voice faded away into the background, as much a part of Sonic's ever-chaotic world as the tap-tap-tap of his feet. Omnipresent, strangely sooting, only noticeable by its absence.

Not that Metal got the hint. He still had a speech to run through. "I am part of something far greater than this… _pathetic_ shell I occupy—"

"Are you trying to _bore_ me to death?!"

"Spare me the formalities. The fact of the matter is…" said Metal Sonic, as an ominous glow overtook the room. "…I have already won."

 _Say what?!_

Could he…could he have found out? About their plans? About Tails and Knuckles?

 _No…he couldn't have…_

If anything could outpace Sonic's feet, it had to be his own mind. Unlike his feet, however, he didn't always have a say in where his mind wandered off, or when. He tried to keep it on the straight and narrow, but outside forces wouldn't allow it, pushing him toward the specter of his own failure. Brief, haunting images of the worst-case scenario flashed before his eyes – too brief for him to even comprehend, but just lo

He could hold himself together no longer.

"You! Just what are you up to?" said Sonic.

For once, he _wanted_ Metal Sonic to add on, to say _something_ , if only to soothe the burning hole in his mental state with some real answers. So of course Metal picked that very moment to keep his virtual mouth shut. Sonic was left to suck on the haunting silence once occupied by taunts and self-aggrandizement.

He struggled to see through the haze, to keep focused on the road ahead…only to find that the road ahead had already been torn asunder, and what was actually ahead of him was a concussive, superheated laser blast that could disassemble his molecular structure at the slightest touch. Had it not been for a last-second dive into a rolling somersault, it would have done the job.

The margin between life and death grew ever slimmer, from feet to inches to millimeters. Sonic felt the initiative wrestled from his grasp, his every move dictated by the will and the aim of his rival. No sooner could he take a step to avoid one bullet than he was forced to sidestep, or duck, or jump over another. Metal Sonic had pulled him into a deadly dance, his arms and legs acting nearly of their own accord to save the rest of the body from destruction.

 _Okay, that's it! No more running around! This ends_ now!

Sonic jerked his head up toward the ceiling, his eyes locked on with searing intensity. A flick of his leg guided him safely through an opening between two Chaos Spears, setting him on a collision course with Metal Sonic. No more would he let the cowardly ammunition of a clone play him like a puppet. His destiny was not one to be determined by anyone else, let alone this abomination. He would take his destiny…the destiny of that great big world outside these grey walls…and clutch them in his own hands.

It didn't even matter that Metal Sonic floated in place, making no effort to fire back or avoid Sonic's sudden charge. Good. He had long since gotten tired of this battle anyway.

The sweet spot beckoned. It was time. Time for Sonic to show just how insane someone could be.

Every limb in Sonic's body trembled and quaked with the sudden maneuver. But he couldn't turn back. He wouldn't turn back if his life depended on it. Right at the point of no return, Sonic launched himself headfirst into Metal Sonic, just as his attention was focused elsewhere…

…and then suddenly wasn't.

That moment, a stunning flash of golden light illuminated the room. By the time it dissipated, Metal Sonic had disappeared along with it.

Sonic's eyes bulged as wide as moons, staring unblinking into the distance as he attempted to sort out the debris in the wreckage of his train of thought. Time slowed to an agonizing crawl, as if to prolong the inevitable conclusion. The same omnipresent physical forces that once challenged and liberated him had decided to turn on him. He was headed on a one-way trip toward the far side wall.

Then a second flash pierced the air above him, as swift and as brilliant as lightning itself. A flash that Sonic knew all too well.

 _No…don't tell me…_

He had put two and two together. But it was too late.

The next moment, Metal Sonic landed a two-fisted blow upon Sonic's head as they crossed paths, the full might of Chaos sending the hedgehog plummeting to the ground, all within a split-second. Cracks formed in the floors and crept their way up the walls, sending chunks of the surface hurtling through the air, as the battlefield itself buckled to an impact several thousand times the force of gravity. At the center of it all was a shallow crater and a broken hedgehog.

As Sonic fought to unscramble the pieces of what happened, he subconsciously uttered the two words that had been on the tip of his tongue during his brief but harrowing journey.

"Chaos…C…control…"

It wasn't until after he'd spoken, when he started to hack up the fine metallic dust he'd inhaled, when he realized he actually said that out loud instead of thinking it.

* * *

"YES! Fight, my son! Crush the hedgehog like the insignificant ant he is!"

The command console, and the entire bridge along with it, trembled with three uproarious clangs of Dr. Eggman's fist. Each gruesome frame of video, each bright red pixel signifying the pouring of Sonic's blood, every angle imbued the doctor with life in inverse proportion to the draining of Sonic's own. The robotic underlings that maintained the ESS-1 found themselves in an atmosphere in which they were unable to perform their assigned tasks. They shuffled backward from their posts, forming an ever-widening circle of empty space around their master's command chair. They yielded every square inch to him, giving him free reign to do with it whatever he so pleased...just as long as _they_ weren't in the line of fire.

"Yes! Crush him! Kill him! Destroy him-"

But his flight of childish glee came crashing to earth when the first of his many monitors spontaneously went blank, the picture tube collapsing into a white dot before fading away.

"Eh?"

One by one, the monitors in Eggman's chamber cut out, depriving him of the uplifting images of Metal Sonic's battle with Sonic. He rushed over to the control panel and went like a sledgehammer at the master power switch, hoping that would rouse the ailing system back to life. Instead, he watched as the bridge of the ESS-1 fell out of his control.

The deafening whir of the room-sized computer terminal slowly faded out. Overhead lights flickered and shut off. Buttons that were supposed to light up when pressed stopped lighting up when pressed. Telemetry systems printed complete nonsense before giving up the ghost. Sensing an apocalypse, some of the more panicky members of Eggman's staff gave up their positions and stormed off, fearing a spread of whatever "infection" had forsaken this ship.

"Fools! Traitors!" screamed Dr. Eggman, waving his fist. "The rest of you had better not be so keen to desert!" They obliged.

He turned away and clutched his forehead. How could he have gotten this close only to have… _this_ happen? He had that hedgehog where he wanted him! Who else could have…

Oh. Of course! He should have known!

"Tails…that obnoxious little furball!"

He turned toward the rest of the room, with a new strategy in mind.

"Find him!" said Eggman, pounding both fists into the console. "We never know what that little brat might be up to, and I don't want to stick around to find out! I want every available force after him! Ground troops! Air troops! The whole lot! Leave no stone unturned!"

"But...the hedgehog?" asked a nearby Egg Flapper.

Eggman cupped his fingers in a triangle of contemplation. "Sonic will be dealt with. He may be able to win a race or two, but even _he_ can't be in two places at once. Or, heaven forbid...three."

"You have your orders, boys! I want that fox out of my way once and for all!"

Eggman's staff flashed him a salute – which went unacknowledged – and scuttled toward battle, splitting off as they exited. He turned around, as if ready to walk away and end the conversation. But at the last moment, he paused and craned his neck back toward Flapper, who trailed the other attack robots in the group.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" he said, reaching out and clutching the robot.

"But—but I was…"

"You're coming with _me."_

* * *

Sonic's consciousness faded in and out, with total darkness being the only constant. He pushed himself against the suffocating edges of the bedrock, against a world that seemed to be closing in on him every second. But it was no use. His body had finally had enough of Sonic's antics, and for once, did not heed the call to respond. His breaths grew more hurried and stilted with each failed attempt, as the sharp creases of the floor's inner cracks buried themselves deep within his flesh. Nor could he shake this funny feeling in his left ear. It was hard to place, but it felt _empty_.

A dim glow provided an island of tranquility in the sea of chaos. Mere inches in front of his face, a cloud of golden sparks formed from thin air, growing in size and congealing upon each other, fireflies in a deadly cosmic dance. Recognizing the cue, Sonic forced his eyes closed for what little protection that would offer.

With a blinding flash of gold, the world came into sharp focus. And then it slammed shut.

There it was, the imposing figure of Metal Sonic, blocking out all light in front of Sonic's face only to generate more than enough of its own to compensate. Metal's cone-like feet, glistening off his radiant glow of Chaos Energy, stood mere inches away from Sonic's nose. Craning his neck up only added to the unwilling illusion that he was staring down a colossus.

Time passed. One second. Two seconds. With each tick of the clock, the question consumed him: Why? Why didn't this tin can just finish the job already? Sonic was a sitting duck. Metal Sonic was standing _right there_. He could have killed him seven different ways by now. There had to be some reason to keep him alive.

Then the "colossus" spoke. Blood still rushed back to Sonic's brain from his perilous fall, so it took him a few seconds to decipher the words. Or rather, _word_.

"… _Predictable_."

Clank. Metal Sonic's footsteps echoed against every surface. Clank. Sonic could just about explode. Why did each step have to take so long? Clank. Was he even moving at all or was he just marching in place to get a rise out of Sonic?

…Clank.

Argh! This was torture. Metal Sonic knew _exactly_ what he was doing here.

Finally, he poised directly over Sonic's prone body and raised one leg high above the ground, ready to stomp. Just as Sonic tensed his muscles to roll himself out of the way, his eyes fell across what exactly was below Metal Sonic's foot.

The communicator!

Sonic's heart sank when he saw the device in danger. He had seen the effort Tails put into assembling the three sets for the team, the dedication he put into assembling this entire operation. He shuddered to imagine what would go through Tails' mind. What would happen if he were to call out to Sonic, and he just…wasn't there?

No…this was non-negotiable. If anything could be salvaged from this, it would at least be Tails' pride and joy.

He struggled against the claustrophobic crevice of exhaustion with all his remaining strength. A primal growl escaped his lips, ascending into a full-on scream. His chest heaved and convalesced, and his heart rattled in his cage, almost too exhausted to take on the titanic responsibilities asked of it. Defying numbness and stabbing pain alike, he heaved himself into a roll along the floor, and flung his arm out to his full extent in a last-ditch effort.

He came up with nothing but air. The next sound he heard was a sickening crunch.

* * *

"Sonic? Do you read me? It's Tails!"

Four calls over the two-way radio system had failed to yield a response beyond ear-piercing static. Even when the system was disabled or busy, he designed it for there to only be silence. Pure static could only mean the …no, perish the thought.

After the stinging tightness in his chest faded away, he slinked to his left, giving himself a direct view of the circuit breaker. He had always kept a modicum of faith in his hunches, and this was no different. Experience taught him that 98% of the wiring ever used by Eggman was fake, merely soldered in as a security measure to ward off unauthorized modification. It was only a matter of finding the 2% that was vital to the ESS-1's operations. He had no idea just _how_ vital.

The afterimage of the circuit breaker burned itself into Tails' retina, disrupting any effort to take advantage of the infinitesimal amount of ambient light afforded to him. Strange. Such an unremarkable object, not unlike the one in his own shack in the Mystic Ruins. But close to ten minutes of working in complete stillness will do that to someone, especially under millions of watts of incandescent light – which he just _had_ to knock out.

Thirty seconds. Surely enough time had passed. Maybe there was enough in his radio system for a miracle.

"Sonic! I think I may have done something—"

A series of ear-piercing cracks, one louder than the other, resounded from the other end of the line - the last dying squeals of a machine. And then static.

Tails let out a gasp, his stomach churning, bundling into tiny knots. The amount of possibilities flooded through his mind, and all of them led to the same gruesome…no, _unthinkable_ conclusion. He just couldn't shake the feeling that something horrible had happened, but not knowing exactly what it was made it seem even more helpless.

His legs quivered not only from the exhaustion of the day's activity, but from a singular frenzied command.

 _What are you waiting for?! Hurry up, you idiot!_

But a stark reality glued him to his spot.

 _Run where, exactly?_

As sweat cascaded off his brow, forming miniature puddles on the floor, Tails flung his head in every direction, looking for even the faintest trace of light. No such luck. He looked over to his right. Nothing. He looked left. Nothing. No wall. No floor. No light fixtures. Just a thick, black cloud of darkness, flanked by swirling, waving patterns of static blanketing his vision, drawing him toward whatever deceptive horrors lay within. There was nothing for him to distinguish one angle from another, nothing that would at least give him one frame of reference.

Running could be scratched off the list. After all, he couldn't tell where to go, or even where "here" was. Tail-flight was out of the question. In these lighting conditions, he wouldn't have been able to make out his rate of ascent. Besides, his lower back stung like hellfire, making a chore out of taking a single step. The last thing he needed today was a concussion on top of everything else.

His gaze then fell upon the device tucked within his left arm.

 _The MilesElectric…could it light the way?_

Tails shook his head as soon as the idea even crossed his mind. No…he needed to conserve every second of battery life for the sake of the mission, and that meant not using the screen as a high-powered flashlight.

Was he looking up or down? He didn't know. He couldn't accept not knowing. So he kept looking, turning his body 360 degrees just to make sure he didn't miss anything. He didn't. His digestive tract compressed itself into a vice-like grip, causing him to hunch over and hyperventilate as the feeling in his limbs slowly vanished.

This had to be a nightmare. No...no, if it were, he wouldn't need to remind himself. He would have awoken by now.

 _No...I can't stand around like this! They need me!_

With no other options, Tails clung to his soldering iron as if it was his only child, holding it directly in front of his face. At that moment, a fit of irony struck him. The same apparatus that knocked the whole ship into darkness just happened to be his most effective means of navigating through it.

Tails squeezed firmly on the ignition trigger, sending a concentrated blue flame roaring from the tip. Though not very large, the fact that it could be seen at all through the pitch-black gloaming was enough for Tails to jerk his head back in shock, his eyes seared by the sudden flash of light. Tears ran down his chin - not of sadness, but merely a natural response to the sudden stinging sensation in his eyes, plus the irritation of his fingers caressing them in a misguided effort to soothe the discomfort. As soon as he regained the strength to open them, he repositioned the soldering iron in front of his body...

...and noticed a flash of silver blocking his path. His heart jumped. Did he see what he thought he just saw?

A quick scan with the soldering iron revealed what appeared to be a torso to an unidentifiable body, with a very familiar texture and shape. He had to have seen this before, but he just couldn't place it. The final piece came together for Tails when he noticed the distinctive mark of Eggman's face just above one of the joints.

His arms froze, causing him to drop the soldering iron to the floor with a deafening clang that resounded off every invisible wall. With the trigger no longer engaged, the meager blue torchlight faded out of existence. As he scuttled backward in the hopes of salvaging his cover, his eyes drifted toward a piercing red glow a few feet above the torso. After closer examination of the source, he realized, with a great chill running through his body, that he preferred walking around in total darkness.

The eyes. He couldn't escape the eyes, as they faded between varying levels of bright red in a hypnotic, sensuous manner, permanently fixed in an expression of demonic fury. He could almost feel them physically searing into his spirit, piercing his will to fight. If they were the windows to the soul, then it was clear that any soul ever possessed by this creature had packed up and left town a long time ago. The tightness returned, gripping Tails' stomach as if it would never let go. Those eyes were pointed at _him_ and him alone.

And then it spoke.

"YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR PERFORMING UNAUTHORIZED MODIFICATIONS. THE PENALTY IS DEATH."

Tails cringed, expecting the worst. A gun, a blade, perhaps even a combination of the two. Trapped in a cage with unknown boundaries, surrounded by obstacles he couldn't see, he sealed his eyes shut and prepared for his fate. Just then, Tails felt the cold, hard press of a heavy metal object against the side of his head.

Someone entered his personal bubble. Someone had to pay the price.

Within a split-second of the object brushing his fur, a shock reverberated through Tails' body, one which ironically seemed to be amplified by the expectation of one. In moments like these, years of accumulated knowledge vanished, leaving room only for raw, animal instinct.

Tails curled his body into itself and let loose a dizzying spin on his toe, leaving his twin appendages trailing behind him. After a full rotation, they made contact with the offending weapon – as well as the hand of the machine holding it – slicing them clean off the body. He slowly let himself back to stillness, clutching his tails in his arms and kissing both of them in a vain attempt to make the pain go away.

A shower of sparks signaled to Tails that he had taken out more than just its weaponry. With one final, whimpering creak, the beast toppled forward and collapsed, tossing a gentle gust of wind across Tails' fur on the way to its final resting place. Little but scattered pieces of scrap remained as the metallic giant virtually disintegrated upon impact.

Tails was riveted to his place, slack-jawed. He could not process the idea of this level of destructive power being enclosed within something so cuddly and soft. To his engineer's mind, it didn't seem physically possible.

As soon as the echoes settled, he noticed another sound off in the distance. Maybe it wasn't a sound at all. Maybe all this commotion had started doing a number on Tails' hearing, and his ears were just buzzing.

Or maybe they weren't.

There was another sound, exactly the same, just inches away on Tails' left. Only this one was loud enough to shock his bones out of his skin. And another one came in from his right that very nearly did. Soon enough, alarms blared far and wide from every angle, and menacing halogen spotlights hissed to life, forcing Tails to bury his head into his arms.

The first thing he noticed after he opened his eyes made him step back in horror. Frantic searching for an escape route turned up nothing. They were all around him. They were on his left, his right, even aiming down on him from the ceiling. That first one was just a rehearsal. Now they had sent reinforcements.

This would have been a perfect time to have a working communication system.

* * *

"Pardon me, master…but why was I not allowed to join the search for that treacherous fox?" asked the Egg Flapper. Following Dr. Eggman through the corridors was harder than usual this time – his master was in an odd huff.

"Because, dear Flapper, I need one of you for a special mission. I need you to…" Dr. Eggman paused to consider his wording. "… _verify_ the status of my secret weapon."

"Oh, I can pull that up for you right away, sir. Metal Sonic's damage quotient is..." Gunner ran a quick query, tapping into the ESS-1's wireless neural network. "...zero percent. Everything is going exactly as you planned it, mas-"

"No, no, no, nincompoop!" Eggman paused and leaned toward Flapper's head, whispering the rest of his sentence. "The _other_ one."


	5. What's He Building in There?

_**Well…shoot. I can't really say anything here, other than I'm sorry. This is where you'd usually find me giving an excuse for slacking off (busy schedule, hectic family life, kidnapped by Bowser, etc.), but I honestly don't have one. There is no explanation for the delay other than a combination of writer's block, a horrific lack of inspiration, and flat-out laziness on my part.**_

 _ **In fact, the chapter you're reading here is somewhat unfinished, making up about 75-80% of the chapter I wanted to write. I'm only posting it for the sake of posting something, and just to see if anyone is still interested.**_

 _ **Don't be surprised if it takes another year for the next chapter to come out, although reviews**_ **may** _ **shorten the wait ever so slightly.  
**_

* * *

...too late.

He exhaled, forgetting his place for a moment, and slumped in defeat. Disconnected chunks of black plastic sliced through the lining of his gloves, cutting into his hands. This was all that was left of Tails' communicator. The damned thing had burst open from the casing, revealing a veritable Escher painting of disconnected wiring and snapped capacitors. Through the wreckage of what used to be a working radio, Sonic swore he could hear voices reaching out to him…the same ones he knew might be calling his name this very second, seeking a connection which had been rudely cut.

For a moment, time froze in the fierce stare between Sonic and his metallic duplicate, which isolated the two from the carnage formed in their struggle. A curtain of smoke enveloped the two combatants, as hardly a square inch of the once-pristine area remained untouched by Metal Sonic's explosive arsenal. But at last, there was a moment to breathe, free of the steady stream of fire, shrapnel, and near-death. The orchestra of battle went into intermission, its echoes still ringing in Sonic's eardrum. Still, it was nice to be able to hear his own thoughts for a change. Then again, that didn't mean very much when those thoughts mostly consisted of the words "too late" playing on a continuous loop.

Which quickly shifted to "get him".

Still very much compromised by the high-speed collision with solid ground, Sonic's mind continued to send mixed signals, playing a sick game with his sense of direction. He was twisting, spiraling, traveling at a million miles a minute, yet at the same time, going nowhere, for he knew his hands and feet were tethered to the floor. Even the slightest impulse to his eyes sliced and stabbed at his cranium, which with each passing second felt more and more like an overripe cantaloupe which had some things done to it by a sledgehammer, but by now he'd kept them closed for so long he didn't realize the multi-colored morass of noise in front of him was only an illusion. Regardless – once he worked out which way was up - he contracted his left leg and used it along with his right arm to push himself off the ground.

No sooner had he raised his body off the canvas than it slammed back down again, weighed down by a heavy, steel boot.

 _Urghhh…feels like someone dropped an anvil on me!_

Second by second, keeping his body above the floor became more of a struggle. The weight on his back only seemed to grow heavier the more he fought against it. One forearm could only quiver at the sheer effort it took, so he moved his other down for extra support. But it did no good. The shaky foundation looked ready to crumble at any moment.

 _No…no, come on, you're better than that! Fight through it, Sonic! Fight through it!_

But his puny arms could not take the strain, and his tenuous grip gave way. As he collapsed chest-first to the floor, repressed physical torment was unleashed in a firestorm that exploded from his aching calf muscle and raced up his backside, forcing a bone-chilling wail out of his mouth before he even realized the noise had come from him. That did it. No longer could he bottle everything up. He had been sent over the threshold where the deepest of primal urges finally surpassed overcame his will to fight them off.

There _was_ something weighing him down. Metal Sonic stood over the pathetic sight…staring at him…judging him...his titanium foot firmly nailing the hedgehog to the floor.

"So…this is what the self-proclaimed _hero_ of the universe, slayer of _gods, savior_ of time and space, has been reduced to? Hmmph," he said, afterwards doing his best to synthesize the sound of a disapproving sigh. "I must say, I can't help but feel disappointed."

"Urgh...I've gotten out of bigger jams than this!" The words choked, sputtered out of his mouth as he fought and clawed to escape Metal's hold. He had to keep to short, stilted sentences, a sensible balance for getting his burning thoughts out.

Suddenly, a breakthrough. Sonic's glove managed to catch on a random spot on the floor, and saw his chance to propel to it and break free. He gradually swung his one free arm out, too gradually, and that's as far as he got. Metal Sonic swooped on the maneuver and crushed it with the other foot. With the hedgehog back under control, Metal leaned over to face Sonic's ear, in the process driving just a few more pounds worth of pressure into his back.

"You are nothing more than a horsefly who thinks himself capable of slaying a lion," said Metal. "As I see it, you have two choices; surrender to the Eggman Empire or face the inevitable."

Sonic's teeth clenched, as he channeled his own physical torment into seething rage, glaring with such fury that he could almost feel his eyes changing to match Metal Sonic's blazing red. 'Surrender'. 'Inevitable'. Those words tended to have that effect on him...now, of all times.

A subconscious impulse glued him to the floor, sending him on a mental journey to the other side of the ESS-1, and a picture emerged in front of him where there was none before, a picture of Tails and Knuckles' battered and broken forms lying before him, bearing the scars and bruises forced upon him by some unknown attacker.

But that's all it was. A picture. An apparition. They may have been on a distant planet for all he knew. The radio transmission was the only link the three had left to share, and it was gone.

 _Guys…I don't know if I'm gonna make it out of this one…_

He scooped the cluster of metal and wiring from the floor and balled it tight into a trembling fist. As if to block out the voices, he thrust that same trembling fist into the floor, creating a shockwave that tremendous enough to resonate across the ESS-1 and command Metal Sonic's attention.

… _but so help me, we're gonna finish this thing no matter what!_

The next words passed from brain to mouth like a whisper, but with the ferocity and impact of a knife in the dark:

"You really don't know me at all, do ya?"

Though Metal Sonic had no facial muscles to speak of, Sonic could just tell from body language that he'd gotten on his double's last nerve. He tilted toward the sky, a fist curled in defiance. As if on cue, a thunderclap split the air, and spheres of blinding light emanated in Metal Sonic's palms as he channeled ever-greater amounts of Chaos Energy.

If he had a fighting chance, he had to make something happen now. Just as Metal Sonic put his entire stock of energy into this finishing blow, Sonic shoved himself in a roll toward his left, holding in a scream as Metal - in a last-ditch effort to hold him back - dug his claw-like toes into Sonic's chest, tearing into exposed flesh.

The gamble paid off. He'd forced the mecha-deity into an undignified pratfall.

With momentum on his side, Sonic rolled into a somersault and bounded back onto his feet. Every step he took widened the ever-growing cracks in the foundation that was his body, but he either didn't know or simply didn't care. The weight was now off his back, and it almost felt like he could leap into the air, swing his arms out, and fly. Sweet, sweet mobility, how he missed it so.

A plasma shot flew across his radar, forcing him into a slide that saved his face from extinction...yet plunged his lower body back into a maelstrom of grinding pain. If that was the price he had to pay for mobility, then so be it.

The world flew by in a blur, or at least this cold, gray prison of a world - man, Eggman really _needed_ to vary the color pallette a bit here - and out of the corner of his eye he managed to catch the doppelganger in his moment of weakness. In the nick of time, he transitioned into a twirling handstand, his legs unfolding and spinning like the blades of a ceiling fan, aiming straight for Metal's head.

"Hey...what the-!"

He struck Metal's left _hand_ instead, which did not flinch, but grabbed hold of Sonic's ankle. One wave of the robot's wrist, and Sonic was cast across the room like dirty laundry.

 _Hmph...not playing games anymore, Metal? Well, neither am I!_

With one flick of his leg, Sonic went from tumbling uncontrollably to tumbling with perfect control, recovering with a short, impromptu breakdance routine and finishing with a devastating kick to Metal Sonic's head.

 _Too_ devastating. It actually seemed to connect.

At first, Sonic wondered if he'd missed Metal altogether and actually hit a nearby pipe. But after he got to his feet and noticed the fresh, new shoe scuff he'd added to Metal Sonic's shiny gold paint scheme, it all seemed to come together. The aura surrounding Metal Sonic had dimmed, fading out whenever he did anything more energy-intensive.

Just then, the room was set alight in a red glow so intense it forced Sonic to shield his eyes to look up.

When Sonic finally gathered the strength to gaze into the blinding gleam, he noticed Metal just…standing there, bent over, letting the energy channel into his body. A pair of miniature turbines spun in opposite directions, generating light from pure nothingness and storing it as pure energy, until the mechanism burst into life, ready to unleash it all on the hedgehog. When he noticed that the source was the engine contained in Metal Sonic's chest cavity, he engaged his defenses, expecting another pounding.

But something was off.

He stood perfectly still, both feet planted...never leaving the ground, not floating. That couldn't be right, unless...unless he simply didn't have the strength for it _._

 _Yes! I knew if I ran him ragged, he'd run out of juice!_

"What's the matter, pal?" asked Sonic. "Gettin' tired?"

As if jolted with a cattle prod, Metal jerked his head toward Sonic, who realized that was probably the only answer he would receive. The glow intensified, and along with it came a high-pitched hum.

A very familiar hum. That laser. Sonic could recognize that sound anywhere.

 _I guess he's tryin' to go out with a bang!_

* * *

A single sentence played on a continuous loop in Tails' mind – _This wasn't supposed to happen._

The halogen spotlights practically seared into his fur. This was a play he'd never rehearsed for, and yet he'd practically been thrust onto the stage to perform to a packed house. And everyone in the packed house was itching to mow him down if he slipped up. They'd left him nothing. An entire battalion of Egg Gunners closed in on all sides – some forming an orderly division on the ground, others lining the catwalks above, a few even scaling the walls to get a good shot at the hapless fox.

The companionship of his radio earpiece was cold and dispassionate, providing no comfort or answers, only non-stop static. Static bombarded his left eardrum for so long that the sensations of dizziness he felt when taking a step were the only reminder he was wearing the stupid thing at all.

It all seemed so simple before. A race against time, and nothing more. Just find the nerve center of the ship, get inside, and raise hell. No questions, just do it. He knew he might run into some resistance along the way, but he hadn't counted on the possibility of _this_ much resistance. There was no telling how much time he'd have to make up…how much time he'd already lost…how much time Sonic had to spare…

His head tilted toward the sky…more specifically, toward the impossibly-high ceiling that covered it. It was the only place that looked to be bot-free…at least he assumed it was. After all, the logic was airtight. Even if a Gunner was somehow stationed up there, how could it see him from so far away, much less keep a steady enough aim to shoot him down?

It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. With one massive burst of energy to his tails, he took off, with the resulting wake force knocking a few Egg Gunners to the ground.

He curled his body into a corkscrew loop, rolling himself over to get a better look at his position. A veritable city of lights took shape behind him, hundreds of little specks of light forming one by one, like fireflies dancing in the autumn breeze. Well, except for that one little speck of light rising toward him. Rather quickly, in fact. _Uncomfortably_ so. Enough for him to see the bolts of electricity jutting from it.

Crud. Make that _a dozen_ big specks of light.

Suddenly, Tails knew how his mono-tailed, ground-bound brethren felt during the hunting season. He was all alone, and that made him the perfect target. There was, quite literally nowhere to go but up.

His lungs were fit to blow at any moment, each twist of his tails seeming like it could be the last his system could take, but damn it, he'd just have to outdo his usual best today. If these baddies were packing anything like what Metal Sonic had, he couldn't be a millisecond off. He sliced through the air like a knife through butter, pushing straight upward against gravity with every ounce of energy he had, because if his calculations were accurate—

A balcony railing passed by his field of vision.

 _Now!_

In one massive effort, he flung his tails into reverse and brought them to a gradual stop, curtailing his ascent. With nothing propelling him, he curled into a sudden dive, and not a second too soon. His face scrunched into itself – he couldn't dare look. He could only pray he made the right call. The world around him flashed once…twice.

Then a thunderous smack. Then another, heralding an ear-splitting chorus of metallic clanging above. Tails' heart went up his throat. Was he hit? Was he hit? No…he wasn't.

The sight of the searing, magma-like red stain dripping from the ceiling, still sizzling from the heat of the combined laser blasts, was a stark reminder of what would have become of him had he not been so fortunate. It eventually dawned on him that this was all that remained of a steel beam that once suspended from above.

At the last moment, he revved up his tails again, seamlessly transferring the momentum from his dive into a near-vertical climb, toward the only open space . _Great_ , he thought. _You survived that. Now what?_

As if in answer, from a shot rang out.

He couldn't see it, couldn't track it, until it was too late. He suddenly fell into a sharp, uncontrollable dive...and as the laser's searing kiss finally started to settle in his tail, he realized why. He'd taken a hit.

He managed to keep his convalescence to a brief yelp before the adrenaline of the moment kicked in. Powered by little more than panic, he reached into his draining reserves for one massive boost from his one remaining tail. Unfortunately, he'd generated more problems than lift. In his compromised state, all he managed to do was send himself careening upside-down, sideways, every direction other than the correct one. If anyone were to ask him how it felt to be trapped inside a juice mixer…yeah, this was probably it.

If this was the Tornado, the alarm would have been blaring already. PULL UP! PULL UP! But by then, it was too late. He'd fallen too far, too fast. He couldn't put in any more power, but maybe if—

Then the floor came out of nowhere and knocked the wind out of him.

Guess not.

* * *

Knuckles' face dripped with sweat, flushed by equal parts exertion and rage.

One door. One lousy, infernal steel door stood between him and the closest thing he'd ever have to a child. It sapped his strength, it took his breath, it took every pounding he could give it and practically mocked him.

He practically threw himself back onto his feet, throwing aside some flotsam from the pile of deceased Egg Pawns gathered around his feet. That situation went to hell in a handbasket real fast. At least he learned two things from the experience. 1: Entering the wrong password on the keypad will trigger a sneak attack by specially-placed Egg Pawns and gun emplacements. 2: The password is not "password".

Still, that was all he had in the idea bag until Tails got him through the door.

Where was he, anyway? He _really_ should have called in by now.

Knuckles pulled out his earpiece just to check whether he hadn't accidentally deactivated it. Nope…the light was green. Still on.

He scoffed. "Typical. Of all the times to go radio silent…"

Deep down, he was thankful no one could hear him. He knew that they could've heard straight through the mask he tried to project. The irony was as unavoidable as it was painful. He found himself truly alone for the first time since he boarded the ship. In a way, he'd gotten what he'd wanted.

But at what cost?

Screw it. Being a guardian meant having to make difficult…even borderline illogical choices. It said in the old mantra that Chaos is power…power enriched by the heart. He could recite that mantra from memory, but now was the time to act on it. What the Master Emerald truly needed was an act of selflessness.

It felt wrong to turn _away_ from the Master Emerald's glow when it was so close…separated from him by no more than a thick steel door and a line of encrypted code. But eventually, he wrenched himself away and headed down the corridor.

 _Hold on, guys, I'm coming!_

Then it happened again.

 _Argh!_

Knuckles stumbled, barely regaining himself. Everything went dark in a hurry, and the room spun out of control, becoming little more than a featureless vortex. The faint echoes of machinery and radio static faded out, giving way to the sound of the rustling wind – a vague, nothing sound which signaled that his mind knew to process something, but not exactly what. Both sides of his head throbbed in almost rhythmic fashion, seemingly ready to explode any second.

These pulses…they were worse than ever. The Master Emerald was in _pain_ , and he could feel it. Not only feel it…see it. His eyes were drawn back toward the other side, where a blazing green light shone through the gloom, in tune with the pounding inside Knuckles' skull. Even from behind the thick steel door, the Master Emerald beckoned to its guardian. He tried to take a step, but when took his next one with his leading foot hanging over thin air, he nearly tripped.

This wasn't real. This was only in his head, he'd told himself. He'd been through this very situation time and time again. And yet, he had to ask. What the hell _was_ real anymore?

Ugh…now he could hardly hear himself think.

Real or not…if the concept of pain could be distilled into a single sound, this was it. This…he didn't even know what to call it, this… _throbbing_ in his head that wouldn't go away. It was there one moment, gone the next, then back again, and like clockwork the pattern repeated. Each step was a furious struggle, his better judgement knowing where to turn, but his senses pulling him in different directions. As he edged closer to the gleam, the flux between "searing pain" and "just fine" faded to nothing, and the pounding only intensified, latching onto him, chipping away at his senses like a mad gremlin crawling inside his cranium.

Nope. Not real. Only in his head. Keep moving.

The more he told himself that, the more he was convinced otherwise.

He pulled closer to the noise – if nothing else, to confirm his skepticism. But with each second, it came into focus, and he noted its location on his right. Some kind of impact…could those be gunshots? Punches landing on someone? No…more like metal clanking against metal. Best guess…someone's footsteps. Knuckles got as close as he reasonably could, and tracked the location of the sound. It didn't stay in one place, it was slithering like a snake…tunneling beneath his feet. It had to be on the next floor down.

There it was again. Tap. Tap. Tap.

…Tap.

Yep…those definitely were footsteps. Slow, consistent footsteps. Whoever this was, it didn't sound like they were in any hurry.

 _That makes one of us…_

* * *

Sensing Eggman's presence, every light fixture in the room burst into life, bringing into focus the sheer scale of what he had created. The walls were covered in an intricate series of pipes and cables, every single one of them vital to the operation of the ship. They gave off a faint, green glow, normally too faint to have been visible to the naked eye were it not for the ever-present smog giving it something to bounce off. Soon, the majesty of the cosmos would come streaming through the panoramic viewscreen...though for now, he'd have to settle for a view of the sea and the occasional shipping vessel that passed by.

Strange. Somehow this space seemed almost too expansive to fit on a ship this size...and yet still too cramped. Perhaps the tubes were the culprit. They had arrived just last week, after all, and this was the only safe place on the ship where he could store row upon row of cryogenic-stasis tubes.

Speaking of which...

Dr. Eggman paused and turned toward the lines of tubes. There was one more thing he needed to check on.

"Hello? Sonny boy?" he said. "Daddy's home!"

He walked over the capsule marked with the Roman numeral 'I', the only one in operation. Yet more tubes jutted out the sides of each, meant to hyper-accelerate growth by supplying oxygen and water at high enough doses at the proper times. For all his studies and labors, this was his reward.

A shriveled mass of a lifeform grew inside, flaccid tentacles jutting out of the bulbous mass of a body trying desperately to form limbs, its color as pale as cigarette ashes. Eggman's head slumped to his chin, unimpressed with the results. It was just as he'd left it that morning...and the morning before that, and the night after that. He'd hoped he would see some positive growth after a hectic day apart from its master. But one look dashed those hopes.

He tapped on the tube vigorously, waiting for something, anything. Nothing changed...not even so much as a ripple in the standing water.

From a nearby table, he picked up a pen and clipboard and set about marking off all of the project targets that he hadn't come within a country mile of reaching. As he made his way through the list, marking off failure after failure, his nerves frayed.

 _Grandfather never had it this rough..._

"Sir?" asked a muffled voice from afar. Dr. Eggman turned to find his trusty Egg Flapper occupying the space where he'd directed him to go, the glass tube at the very heart of the room. "Shall we begin the experiment?"

Oh! Of course! The...um..."experiment".

In one smooth motion, he tore the sheet off the clipboard, crumpled it, and threw it toward the closest trash can. Turning away, not even taking care to note that his impromptu sky-hook had undershot the basket by twenty feet, he entered the radiation-proof observation chamber. By the time he settled into his seat, he had already lapsed into another episode of "Dr. Eggman's Thinking Out Loud".

"Bah! No matter! After I'm through with the hedgehog and his friend, I'll have all the time in the world to perfect the procedure!"

"Sir, may I politely remind you that Project Beacon is still in an untested state?" asked Flapper.

"Hmm? Oh…yes," muttered Eggman, as he tapped on a touchscreen, cycling through a rather rudimentary menu. Sprawling bulleted lists of flora and fauna from all over the planet were, for the moment, rendered in little more than a white background and the default system font. He was planning to mold it into a sleek and shiny interface worthy of the Eggman name, but Sonic and his annoying friends just had to butt in and ruin his schedule.

If there was going to be a guinea pig for this test, Flapper was the ideal candidate. One of the few remaining holdovers from the Legacy Series, which all drew power from an "organic battery", it was effectively rendered obsolete for battle duty once Dr. Eggman had found a self-sustaining power source. In one stroke, this opened the possibilities for larger and more destructive Badniks...although Sonic and Tails' little jaunt through the middle decks of his ship should have indicated how successful he was on that front.

But Dr. Eggman kept many of the Legacy Series mechs around – or at least the few that hadn't been felled by the hedgehog's foot. Perhaps it was out of a perverse sense of loyalty. Maybe it was his sick version of 'survival of the fittest'. Either way, he bided his time, waiting for the right moment to use them in the field once again. That time had finally come.

"Ah!" He'd finally reached the right selection in the menu.

Theoretically, there was a checklist with scores of other safety procedures both before and after this part, but they'd all become unreadable by this point, obscured by months worth of coffee stains. Throwing caution to the wind, he flipped open a glass box and pressed the silver button encased inside.

The moment his finger pushed down, all electric light in the room dimmed, sprang back into life for a nanosecond, then went out altogether.

Flapper turned upward to watch the spectacle of light above it. Tiny, green bolts of lightning crackled from an orb at the center of the tube, intermittently at first, but becoming more and more frequent...even persistent. As more energy fired through the tube, the bolts connected with each other, forming a consistent pattern which settled in the miniature vaccuum-chamber at the top. The energy only intensified, and chaos collided with chaos to create more chaos. With nowhere else to go, it grew into an unstable vortex looking for an outlet.

This was an inconvenient time for Flapper to notice that the outlet was pointed directly at it.

"Sir?" Flapper asked. "Requesting information on the nature of this experimen-"

Eggman didn't even wait for his loyal servant to finish before pressing the button a second time. The time for questions had long since passed. Had Eggman given Flapper X-ray vision, perhaps it would have been able to see what Eggman saw on his touchscreen.

The target species he'd selected: FLICKY - Flapper's container animal.

Then again, there wasn't anything Flapper could have done about it.

One blast of Chaos Energy from the top of the tube phased through its skin, tearing through every atom of its being. One second passed. There was no movement, no signs of resistance. Two seconds.

The weapon depowered, and one by one, lights returned to the room to revealing Flapper unmoving at the bottom of the tube, reduced to little more than a non-functioning shell - a shell which the Chaos energy had left almost as pristine and new as the moment it left the factory.

But only a shell, with no power. And no power source.

The word, stuck to the tip of the doctor's tongue, fell out with a soft, almost awed whisper.

"Success."

* * *

" _AAARGH!"_

Knuckles fell to his knees. Never before, not during any of the crises he'd dealt with before, had Chaos cried out to him like this.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading, and _extra-special_ thanks if you've followed the story since 2017 and are still around. Be sure to review - it keeps the lights on!  
**

 **Before I go, I'd like to make a shameless plug for my Discord server, The Nerve Center. A casual place to discuss pop culture, sports, and current events, not to mention show off your creations. There's also a special set of channels for Sonic the Hedgehog discussion! PM me if you want to join!**


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